To beat a number one team, everything must go right. 

For John Carroll Tuesday night, many things went right but just enough went askew as the Blue Streaks were denied a chance to pull off the upset against host and top ranked College of Wooster. 

Some late misses and turnovers short circuited a rally as JCU fell by a 89-76 score to the undefeated Fighting Scots at Timken Gymnasium. 

Box Score 

"They're bigger than us and it showed later in the game,' said John Caroll head coach Mike Moran. "They've got a couple of All-American quality players in (Ian) Franks and (Justin) Hallowell. You've got to get outstanding performances out of everybody to beat a team of that magnitude and we got some great efforts tonight but sometimes it just doens't work out ... and that's the game of basketball."

In the Blue Streaks' first opportunity to face a team ranked first in the d3hoops.com national poll, John Carroll led just one time all evening. That took place early on with a Corey Shontz three-point field goal that made the score 8-7 at the 16:15 mark. 

Wooster's response was an 8-0 run that would give the Scots a lead that they never relinquished
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Although John Carroll had several chances to wrest it away. Despite trailing by as many as ten points at one juncture (21-11), the Blue Streaks were able to cut the Wooster advantage to a single point in the first half at 31-30 on a Michael Hartnett three ball, and again at 41-40 on a Conor Sweeney trey. 

But Wooster was able to weather those runs and took a 50-44 lead at the break behind 23 first half points from All-American Ian Franks. 

JCU briefly cut the Fighting Scots advantage to 50-46 top open the second period, Wooster would threaten to run away. Eleven unanswered points by the home team, capped by a Nathan Balch jumper with 13:42 on the clock put the Fighting Scots up by 15 points. 

Teetering on the edge of a rout, the Blue Streaks would fight back with the next seven points to make a game of it once again. 

With 4:10 left, Joey Meyer dropped in his fifth and final three-point field goal to cut the deficit to six points at 75-69. But John Carroll would not be able to cut into the margin further despite a cold spell from Wooster due to turnovers on consecutive possessions and allowing two offensive rebounds on a Fighting Scots possession that ended with Franks scoring his first second half field goal to put his team up 77-69 with 2:20 to play. 

John Carroll closed to 83-76 on three Meyer free throws with 47 seconds remaining, but Wooster scored the final six points to push the margin back to double digits. 

"They're the most complete team we will play all year," said Meyer. "You've gotta play a near perfect game to beat this team. We made some good halftime adjustments since they broke our press easily in the first half, but we just weren't perfect tonight."

Wooster improved to 10-0 thanks to 28 points from Franks and 19 from Justin Hallowell. The Scots shot 31-58 from the field including 8-21 from three-point range, and outrebounded the Blue Streaks, 43-29. 

John Carroll, which fell to 7-4, was paced by 23 points from Meyer and 17 from Maurice Haynes. JCU was 23-64 from the field and 11-32 from beyond the arc, and forced 15 turnovers from Wooster.