Road wins still tough to come by for Phoenix basketball

Next three games crucial to conference tournament seeding

Colin Donohue / Managing Editor

A new coach, new system, some new players, same result. The Elon men’s basketball team still found trouble overcoming its problems on the road, losing both games on its Tennessee swing. Despite the loses to East Tennessee State and UT-Chattanooga, Elon remains in the middle of the pack of the Southern Conference north division standings, magnifying the importance of its last three games.

Elon’s first opportunity to overcome its two road defeats will be Saturday at Alumni Gym against Western Carolina, a team that sits at 5-8 in the conference – the same record as Elon.

If the Phoenix could pull out a victory against Western Carolina, it will improve its chances to finish the season with a respectable 8-8 record in the conference – which may be good enough to place third in the north division. Elon’s last two games – at Georgia Southern and against UNC-Greensboro at Alumni – are winnable games.

Before Elon looks ahead, though, it needs to have a healthy Scottie Rice, who has been slowed by a knee injury that flared up in a loss to UNC-G earlier this season. Rice is wearing a brace, but he played only a combined 35 minutes in the team’s losses at ETSU and Chattanooga.

Jackson Atoyebi has continued his strong play, scoring 16 points in a 62-57 loss to Chattanooga and 17 points in the 73-58 loss to ETSU.

Freshman guard Matt Nowlin has leveled off somewhat, but his production could go up if a healthy Rice returns to the lineup. He scored 11 points – and finished 3 of 16 from three-point range – against ETSU, and he recorded 13 points at Chattanooga.

With Rice hurt, though, head coach Ernie Nestor has been able to experiment with different guard rotations. Nestor said he likes to play Steve Harvin and Montell Watson on the floor at the same time.

While playing Harvin and Watson simultaneously causes bad defensive problems for the Phoenix due to their size (5 feet, 11 inches and 6 fee, 1 inch, respectively), having both on the floor provides Elon with two legitimate ball handlers. Harvin and Watson have competing styles of play which also works well on the floor.

Watson is the more dynamic player, who is comfortable taking the ball into the middle of the lane. Harvin, conversely, stays more within the offense and prefers jump shots to lay-ups in traffic.

Nestor continues to stress that the Phoenix have failed to play a full lineup all season. Harvin was suspended early. Watson had a brief illness in the early stages of the season. Chris Chalko has been battling mono all year. The extent of Rice’s injury is unknown. And Carlos Moreira injured himself badly and is now confined to a wheelchair as the result of a traffic accident.

These next three games, then, will be a testament to the desire of the team. A third place seed in the conference tournament should be enough motivation.

Courtesy of Andrew Brickey

Matt Nowlin has provided much needed scoring for the Phoenix late in the season. With Scottie Rice unable to play a lot of minutes, Elon will rely on Nowlin, who scored 11 and 13 in the team’s losses, to be the team’s outside presence.

Tim Rosner / Photographer

Steve Harvin (30) has meshed well with fellow guard Montell Watson in recent games. Their different styles of play have impressed head coach Ernie Nestor enough that they often find themselves on the floor together.