The recent snow storm didn’t just cancel classes at Elon University.
The Phoenix men’s basketball team was forced to reschedule its game at Furman University and rework its practice schedule due to the weather conditions. Elon will now travel to Furman Feb. 24, which means the Phoenix will play five games in 11 days to end the regular season.
“It’s not ideal,” said Elon head coach Matt Matheny. “But we wouldn’t be in this situation if we didn’t have to reschedule a game, so it is what it is.”
The Phoenix sets off on a road trip beginning with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Feb. 19. Elon then heads to Georgia Southern University Feb. 22 and Furman before wrapping up the regular season at home against Wofford College Feb. 27 and Davidson College March 1.
Senior forward Lucas Troutman emphasized the importance of taking things on a day-to-day basis during the brutal stretch.
“It’s one step at a time, one move for the next,” Troutman said. “The only thing we can do right now is look to what we have next, and look for tomorrow, getting better in practice and going from there.”
With no classes from Feb. 12-14, the team took advantage of the free days by spending more time in the gym. Assistant coach Monty Sanders and director of basketball operations Chris Long drove players from their apartments and dorms to practice each day.
“It was lovely,” said senior guard Sebastian Koch. “It was awesome. I enjoyed it. We could focus on getting to the gym a lot and getting extra shots off. We had all the time in the world. We got to sleep in and rest up.”
That extra rest resulted in an 86-69 victory over Samford University. It also gave Troutman some more time to recover from a bout of the flu that forced him to miss a game. He scored 16 points against Samford but said he’s not back to full strength just yet.
“I was down for several days, and I wasn’t moving,” Troutman said. “That’s something I’m working on. Coach [Matheny] was just trying to ease me back in tonight.”
Matheny sarcastically spoke about how thrilled the team was to return to class and a more conventional schedule for the upcoming week. He does like the thought of the players being in class, though.
“It’s unusual for us to take this many days off, but it was a heck of a storm,” Matheny said. “As a coach, I love practicing at 1 [p.m.] and thinking about nothing but basketball. But routine is also good. And knowing where they are on Monday in class. I like that too.”