THE PENDULUM

The Elon men's basketball team achieved a feat not yet seen this season — back-to-back wins.

The team won its fifth game on Saturday at Furman University 66-55 and returned to Alumni Gym to defeat Western Carolina University, 81-76, on Monday night.

The team is now 6-17 on the season, 4-8 in Southern Conference games. It will look to extend the win streak to three at 7 p.m. Thursday at the College of Charleston.

"The way I feel right now is that we're playing a little bit better than we were two weeks ago," head coach Matt Matheny said. "We're playing well enough to be on the (winning) side."

In Monday night's game against the Catamounts, the Phoenix jumped out to a 39-23 lead by halftime.

Western Carolina was able to rally in the second half and cut the deficit to one point with 9:48 remaining, but Elon was able to answer each Catamount surge.

"They came out physical in the second half and punched us in the mouth," senior forward T.J. Douglas said. "But we got right back up and kept fighting, and that's what it takes to win."

A key element to the Phoenix victory on Monday was its tendency to win battles for loose balls, Matheny said.

"That's a testament to our players," Matheny said. "We knew coming into this game that we'd have to get a lot of the 50-50 balls."

Monday's victory over the Catamounts, the No. 1 team in the SoCon North Division, will be a similar match-up to its game against the College of Charleston.

The Cougars are in first place in the South Division of the SoCon, holding a 16-9 overall record and a mark of 11-3 in conference.
As with any winning streak, Elon players would like this one to last as long as possible, senior forward Adam Constantine said.

"We'll feel good about (Monday's win) for a few hours, then we get ready for the next game," Constantine said. "The purpose of a winning streak is to continue it."

Constantine recorded 15 points in Monday's win, including two dunks over Catamount defenders, which brought the Phoenix fans to their feet.

"We've handled coming up short; now we're going to see how we handle success," Constantine added.

Junior guard Chris Long has an idea of where to start for continuing the team's recent success.

"The key thing is working hard," Long said. "We need to move on (from Monday) and take one game at a time."

Long said he thought the team would be able to do just that because of the desire of the seniors to finish the season strong.

Phoenix fans may remember the past few years, when the team would struggle through the season only to find its groove late in the season and close the season on a high-note.

"We've been playing well and progressively getting better," Douglas said. "I definitely think through my four years here we've come on strong toward the end of the season. It's starting to feel that way now, and we want to keep it going."

Thursday's game marks the only regular season matchup with the Cougars. Last season, the teams split two regular season games, with each road team winning the matchup.