GREENSBORO — It may have been a tale of two halves for the Elon University men’s basketball team at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Feb. 19, but it never ceased to make shots.
Some just came from different spots on the floor.
The Phoenix shot lights-out in the first half and was stellar from the free throw line in the second half to earn an 81-68 victory over the Spartans, its sixth straight win.
Elon made 51.7 percent (15 of 29) of its shots in the first half and 60 percent (6 of 10) of its 3-pointers, and followed that up with a 17 of 18 performance at the charity stripe in the second half.
“We just want to play our game,” Koch said. “We’re a team that can shoot the ball well. We played pretty solid offensively, but defensively we could have gotten more stops at times.
It’s a sharp contrast from the last time these two teams met, Feb. 6 at Alumni Gym, when the Phoenix made just 2 of 20 from 3-point range.
“We’re playing better offensively,” said Elon head coach Matt Matheny. “It felt like we were smoother with our motion offense.”
The teams went back and forth in the game’s opening minutes before a 9-2 Elon run gave the Phoenix a 25-16 lead at the 9:45 mark and forced a UNCG timeout. Senior forward Ryley Beaumont made his first three shots — all 3-pointers — and the Phoenix led by as much as 10.
“I thought it was going to be like the NBA All-Star Game, point wise,” Matheny said of the opening minutes.
The Spartans stayed in it thanks to contributions under the bucket from freshman center RJ White and Arizona State University transfer Kyle Cain. After cutting the lead to 32-29, Elon went on a 10-0 run just before halftime to break the game open.
“The first half, there was a bad stretch there where [Elon] made the run,” said UNCG head coach Wes Miller, “but I thought we were bad the entire half. We came out with bad energy. We weren’t communicating. We just completely disregarded some of the things we talked about in our game plan and in our scouting report.”
The teams shot a combined 10 free throws in the first half but tallied 42 overall in the second half. Those trips to the line first gave UNCG the punch needed to cut the deficit to four at 46-42 before a 9-0 Phoenix run gave the visitors some breathing room.
While Elon continued to sink free throws, the Spartans saw production from White and Cain, but no one else. During a stretch of more than 12 minutes during the second half, they were the only two UNCG players that scored.
LAST TIME OUT: Elon rolls by Samford
On the contrary, the Phoenix had five players in double-figures but also had some meaningful minutes from bench players.
“[Freshman] Brian Dawkins is playing well enough that he gives us really good quality minutes off the bench,” Matheny said. “[Junior] Ryan Winters has been really good. Those two guys belled us out of a time in the second half when we were not playing really well.”
An alley-oop from Koch to senior forward Lucas Troutman with under a minute to go was the exclamation point in Elon’s tenth consecutive win over UNCG. The current senior class has never lost to the Spartans.
“The way [Elon] has played over the last three games is on a different level, both as a group and individually,” Miller said. “They’re playing with great confidence. It looks like they’re starting to hit their stride as a team.”
Senior guard Jack Isenbarger led the Phoenix with 17 points, while Koch tapped in 15 and Beaumont and Troutman each had 13. Junior guard Kevin Blake added 11 points.
UNCG dominated the rebounding game, specifically on the offensive end. The Spartans grabbed 13 offensive boards in the second half and held the Phoenix without a single one.
“They do have some big boys down there,” Isenbarger said. “We have to rebound as a team better. Give [UNCG] credit; they had great energy on glass. In order to win the rebounding war, we need to team-rebound more.”
Despite being on a six-game winning streak, Matheny was quick to find areas of improvement for his team, citing rebounding and coming out of the second half better. The Phoenix now sits at 16-11 overall and 9-3 in the Southern Conference and will play at 2 p.m. Feb. 21 at Georgia Southern University.
“There is plenty left to reach for,” Matheny said. “We have our work cut out for us. We were fortunate to beat Georgia Southern by a point at our place, and now we go down to Statesboro to play them there. We as a team have improved in our play in all areas. But, there’s still room for improvement.”