Elon University Athletic Director Dave Blank couldn’t help but smile.
The gym renovated under his direction in 2010 was packed to the brim with Elon students and excited community members clad in white Feb. 27 as the men’s basketball team took on Davidson College.
It was a picture of the success this year’s team has achieved, and Blank’s smile was warranted.
“It’s the first time in basketball that I’ve seen the student section full literally at 6:15 and the game starts at 7:00,” he said the next day. “Not only that, there were students standing trying to figure out, ‘OK, where am I going to sit?’ because the seats were gone. That can’t do anything but give you a home-court advantage when your team runs out on the floor to that kind of atmosphere. That was a very different atmosphere, and I’m sure it had a big impact on our team.”
Even though Elon lost to the Wildcats that night, the Phoenix’s season is arguably one of the program’s most historical simply because of what it accomplished. But it’s not over.
“We’re moving up the mountain,” said head coach Matt Matheny after the Phoenix’s win against the University of North Carolina at Greensboro March 2. “North Division champs is moving up the mountain. Twenty-win season is moving up the mountain. Four years ago, we were 9-23. I still feel every one of the 23 losses. To go 20-10 is almost a flip of that, and that’s kind of neat. It’s moving up the mountain, but we’re nowhere close to the top.”
Seeking elevation
It started last year with a T-shirt that read “Elevate Elon.” The goal? To make Elon a top-notch program.
“For us, Elevate Elon is a constant thing,” said junior forward Ryley Beaumont at the beginning of the season. “You don’t take plays off, you don’t take practice off when you’re tired. Elevate Elon is a constant reminder to yourself that we need to elevate this program.”
In 2011-2012, Elon had done a bit of elevating in Matheny’s third season at the helm. It had defeated SEC opponent University of South Carolina at home and earned a win in the second round of the Southern Conference tournament over Georgia Southern University.
“We expect a lot more,” sophomore guard Austin Hamilton said prior to the season. “Each and every year, we want to elevate to being an elite program in college basketball. It’s definitely something that we stand by and that we’re going to continue to do because we’ve got the tools to elevate.”
Hamilton was right — the tools were all there. Four of five starters came back from last year’s team, and Hamilton replaced graduated guard Drew Spradlin in the lineup.
While there had been some success in previous years, Matheny wanted more.
“We are excited about how far we’ve come, we’re excited about the little successes that we’ve had, but we’re far from content, and we’re still chasing quite a bit of things,” he said. “There is an incredible amount of things that we can accomplish that we haven’t accomplished in a long time.”
Matheny also shared his mantra that carried throughout the entire season: “We want to improve on a daily basis and be good in March, regardless of why we play.”
After a season-opening loss to Butler University Nov. 10, the Phoenix won six of its next eight games, including wins against South Carolina Nov. 21 and a tournament title in the EA Sports Maui Invitational Regional Games Nov. 17-18.
Elon hosted the Regional Games and earned two wins, defeating Colgate University 81-72 Nov. 17 and Florida Atlantic University in overtime by a score of 62-59 Nov. 18 to earn the championship.
Regional Games MVP and junior forward Lucas Troutman talked after the Florida Atlantic game about using the victory as motivation for the rest of the season, while junior guard Jack Isenbarger foreshadowed what would become a theme throughout the year.
“One of my favorite parts is when the fans go crazy and the fans go nuts, when we hit a big shot or Lucas has a big dunk,” Isenbarger said. “The fan base is growing. We’re starting to get more people to come to games, more people in the community talking about Elon basketball. The fans that we had have been great to us. We’re thankful to them and we’re grateful that they’ve been so supportive of us.”
An early sign of the confidence the Phoenix had developed can be seen in what Hamilton said a couple days after the win against the Gamecocks.
“I think, as we’ve matured, we knew we were supposed to beat them,” he said. “Last year, it was a surprise beating an SEC team. We’ve got that confidence now knowing that we can beat teams like that. It was definitely a great win, but it wasn’t as hyped up [this year] as it was last year.”
Setting up for a streak
After fall semester final exams, the Phoenix dropped a 78-73 overtime loss Dec. 15 to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a 22-point defeat Dec. 20 at the hands of then-No. 1 Duke University. Elon put up a fair showing against the Blue Devils, but couldn’t overcome an eight-point halftime deficit.
A last-second victory against Columbia University Dec. 22 was followed by a dominating win over Div. III Manchester University on New Year’s Eve. But the following two games proved to be a turning point.
First, Elon never led against Princeton University, as the Tigers earned a 74-64 win, a game in which the Phoenix got out-rebounded and trailed by as many as 16 points at times. Second, Appalachian State University manhandled Elon 80-70 Jan. 12.
Against the Mountaineers, Elon hit four three-pointers and allowed Appalachian State to go on a 15-3 run at the end of the first half to lose a 12-point lead and start the Southern Conference stretch of the season 0-1.
After that loss, something happened.
“We came out and lost to App State and we all said, ‘We’re never doing that again,’” Troutman said.
Initially, it didn’t look like that was going to happen. Early against Western Carolina University Jan. 14, Hamilton, who had started all but one game prior, went down with a knee injury. But Elon pulled out an 80-67 win thanks to Troutman, Isenbarger, junior guard Sebastian Koch and junior forward Ryley Beaumont scoring in double-digits.
It was the beginning of something special. The Phoenix would go on to win the next six games, creating a seven-game winning streak, the longest since Elon won nine straight contests in the 2005-2006 season. The wins came in different forms: a 24-point blowout against the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Jan. 24, two tight wins over The Citadel Jan. 26 and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro on Jan. 31 and solid home wins over Furman University Jan. 17 and Wofford College Jan. 19.
The UNCG game in particular was a sign of how different this season was. The game was a back-and-forth affair, as the Spartans forced Elon into 25 turnovers and Isenbarger, the team’s second-leading scorer, was limited to 1-of-11 from the field. But that one make was a three-pointer to give Elon the lead for good with 1:31 left in the second half.
“In past years, this might have been a game we would have lost,” Troutman said afterwards. “This year, we’ve really had leadership step up. We’ve really had the team come together overall. It’s just been amazing having everybody flow so well together and being able to fight out through tough situations.”
During that streak, Troutman and Isenbarger hit personal milestones, as both reached 1,000 career points. Isenbarger hit the mark against Chattanooga, while Troutman scored the point Feb. 2 against Samford University, the same night his teammate was honored.
Unsurprisingly, Matheny was thrilled, but not just because of the scoring.
“That’s a sign of the growth of our players,” he said after the Samford game. “I have a vivid memory of recruiting them, our staff recruiting them, seeing them play in high school, seeing them as freshmen here, seeing them become sophomores and seeing them improve. Now, they’ve taken ownership of this team. ”
Troutman perhaps had the most remarkable season for the Phoenix individually. Starting Nov. 13 against Div. III Bridgewater College, the junior forward scored in double digits in 21 straight games and earned a SoCon Player of the Week award the week of Feb. 5.
But for Matheny, it was more than just the numbers.
“He’s having a great year,” he said after Elon defeated Wofford College Jan. 19. “What he’s doing well is that he’s playing play after play after play. Doesn’t perform perfectly on every play, but after mistakes, he’s locked in, focused and ready, and after good plays he’s locked in, focused and ready.”
Dealing with adversity
The injury bug struck again for the Phoenix when the 6-foot-10-inch big man went down with an ankle injury just 18 seconds into Elon’s win Feb. 9 at Furman, two days after their winning streak was snapped at Wofford.
Meanwhile, Elon had hit more milestones, particularly for Matheny. The win over Furman was the Phoenix’s 16th win of the season, setting a single-season high during Matheny’s tenure. The Phoenix was 16-8 overall, 9-3 in conference and on a roll.
But Troutman struggled for most of the next few games. He missed the Feb. 14 win against Appalachian State. He started and scored 18 points in 28 minutes against Western Carolina two days later, but the injury held him to 13 minutes the next Thursday against Samford before being held out completely Feb. 23 against Chattanooga.
During that time, a different Phoenix player emerged. Starting against Furman, Beaumont averaged 18 points per game over five games to lead Elon to four straight wins and a narrow loss to Chattanooga Feb. 23.
“He really stepped up with Lucas going down the last two games,” Matheny said of Beaumont after the Appalachian State win. “He made tough plays, he made aggressive plays. I thought he made the right plays. He led us on the defensive end, he talked. He is exactly what you hope to coach in a junior and senior year. His leadership is unbelievable.”
That leadership from Beaumont had to show through in some close games. In that stretch of five games, Elon beat Furman by four, Appalachian State by three, Western Carolina in overtime, escaped Samford with a one-point victory and lost to Chattanooga by four.
In that time, Elon earned its second-ever SoCon North Division championship with its win over Samford Feb. 21, as Beaumont scored 14 points and snagged 14 rebounds. The championship clinched the No. 2 seed for the conference tournament.
Constant throughout the streak and throughout all the success was an attitude of “we can get better.”
“January and February is a grind, that’s just the way it is,” Matheny said after the first Samford win. “I went into the locker room after the game, and our guys are smiling, they’re excited, they’re happy about the win. And then I said, ‘We can get better,’ and they didn’t look at me like I was crazy. They all were like, ‘You’re right, we can get better.’”
It’s not over yet, but it’s fun
Perhaps the most symbolic game of the season was the matchup of division champions Feb. 27.
South Division champion Davidson traveled to Alumni Gym that Wednesday in what could have been the most hyped game of the season. More than 1,800 fans filled the gym and watched the Phoenix fall 69-63 to the Wildcats in a tight matchup.
“It was a tough loss, but I think it shows us where we’re at,” Isenbarger said. “I think it shows us where we need to focus on ourselves and focus on self-improvement before the tournament because March is going to be here really soon, so we want to be playing our best basketball in March.”
There it is again: playing their best in March. Now, it’s March, and the conference tournament is this weekend.
The Phoenix closed out the regular season with a runaway 80-66 victory March 2 over UNCG, capping a 20-win regular season, the program’s first in 25 years.
“Twenty wins has been a milestone in college basketball for a long, long time,” Matheny said. “It’s not something we have talked much about. To get it is a good milestone for our program and it shows the growth of our program over the last four years.”
All of this has been witnessed by a legion of fans unlike anything in Matheny’s tenure. After the big number against Davidson, 1,711 people showed up to see Elon defeat the Spartans.
Before the Davidson game, with the fans going nuts, Beaumont looked at Matheny and said, “Can you believe this?”
“I just thought, ‘Wow, this is something we’ve only dreamed about,’” the head coach said.
Three years ago, Matheny coached through a 9-23 season when he wondered sometimes, he said, if students even knew his team was playing.
“You look at Wednesday night, and you look at Saturday,” he said, “that’s really in many ways a dream that we only dreamed about coming true.”
While Elon does go into the SoCon tournament this weekend with a great deal of momentum and a 20-win season on its record, players say there’s still some improvement to be made.
“We still made a lot of mistakes today, and we want to be at our best during the tournament, when it really matters,” Koch said after Saturday’s game. “We’ve still got next week to work on all the things we messed up today in the game. If we get those things down, we have a bright future ahead of us.”
At the beginning of the season, Troutman talked about how his team didn’t have much fun the previous year. One of the team goals was to actually enjoy this season.
Have they so far?
“We’ve definitely had a successful season and that’s what makes it fun,” he said. “That’s a big part of growing as a team. We’ve really [had fun] this year. We’ve had some guys cut up and have fun on the court, enjoy practice, enjoy games and be able to take the best out of what we have.”
The improvement is noticeable. Just look at the record, the stats, the players’ numbers, the division crown, the leadership, the maturity, the respect, the fans.
There’s just one thing left to do.
“Our dream is the NCAA Tournament, the Sweet 16, the cover of USA Today,” Matheny said. “It’s neat to have accomplished so far this year what we have accomplished, but it doesn’t change what we’re shooting for.”