The Elon University women’s basketball team will play its first game of this year's Colonial Athletic Association Tournament on Friday, March 11 against The College of Charleston Cougars in a second round game.
The Phoenix enter the tournament with its best conference record (9-9) since the 2017-2018 season. As the fourth seed, Elon will get an automatic bye - which means they don't have to play in the first round of games - into the second round of the tournament. This means the Phoenix will only have to win three games instead of four to win the CAA championship.
Head coach Charlotte Smith said she is happy to have an automatic bye to the second round and knew she wanted the team to finish in the top tier of the league to be in the best position for success.
Elon comes into this game on a two game winning streak after beating William & Mary twice last week.
“There are not many teams that win a conference tournament having played four games in a row,” Smith said.
Elon won both its games against College of Charleston this year on Jan. 14 and Feb. 13. However Smith said the team is not overconfident about the matchup.
“You have to respect everybody and the College of Charleston has a very respectable program,” Smith said. “They've knocked off some of the top teams in the league, so you can't take anything for granted.”
Senior guard Brie Perpignan led the Phoenix in scoring during the regular season with nearly 17 points per game and has had success against the Charleston Cougars in the past. She played a career high 44 minutes and made a career best 13 free throws on 15 attempts in the Feb. 13 game between the teams, and on Jan. 14 she grabbed a personal best eight rebounds. Perpignan was recently named to the All-CAA Second Team for her performance in the regular season.
The Phoenix will tip off against the fifth seeded Cougars at approximately 2:30 p.m. on Friday, March 11 at the Daskalakis Center on the Campus of Drexel University in Philadelphia. The winner of that game will advance to the semifinals and play either Drexel, Hofstra University or the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.
The semifinal games are set for Saturday, March 12 and the championship game will be held on Sunday, March 13. The conference champion will earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. The Phoenix previously won the CAA championship tournament two times, in 2017 and 2018.