One day after the rematch of Super Bowl XLII (that’s 42, which according to Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the meaning of life) featuring the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, another rematch takes place.

The Elon Phoenix (12-10 overall, 7-4 SoCon) welcome the Appalachian State University Mountaineers (9-13, 5-7) to Alumni Gym Monday night in a rematch of the Jan. 28 game that ended with a little physicality.

With ten seconds left in the game, Elon sophomore forward Ryley Beaumont horse-collared Appalachian State junior forward Nathan Healy as Healy went up for a layup. The move incensed Healy, who had to be restrained as Beaumont walked away with a flagrant foul.

Beaumont claims no maliciousness, but he’s excited for the game Monday night.

“It should be a physical game,” he said, “and nobody’s going to back down on the other team.”

It also fired up Appalachian State senior guard Omar Carter.

“I’m pretty confident we can go down there and win,” he said. “(That incident) fueled our fire a little bit.”

Since that win for the Mountaineers, which pushed them to third in the Southern Conference North Division, they’ve struggled, losing consecutive games at home to the Samford University Bulldogs Feb. 2 and the College of Charleston Cougars Saturday afternoon, falling to fourth in the division, two-and-a-half games out of first place.

The close loss to the Bulldogs came when Mountaineers freshman guard Tab Hamilton missed one of three free-throws with a half-second left on the clock after he was fouled on a three-pointer. Healy led Appalachian State with 14 points and was the only player in double-figures for the Mountaineers.

The Cougars brought their hot shooting to Boone, as College of Charleston hit 11-of-26 from behind the arc as they walked away with a 74-62 win. Healy once again led Appalachian State in scoring with 12 points and added eight rebounds. The Mountaineers shot a porous 37.1 percent from the floor.

Carter, the preseason SoCon Player of the Year, had a combined 13 points in both games, shooting a combined 31.3 percent.

That being said, Appalachian State poses a lot of problems for the Phoenix. In the first matchup, Carter had 20 points and eleven rebounds. Appalachian State junior guard Jamaal Trice added 20 points and senior forward Andre Williamson chipped in nine points and ten rebounds.

Carter will get paid special attention from the Phoenix. He is twelfth in the league in points per game (13.2) and ninth in rebounds per game (6.3). He tops Appalachian State in points per game and is second in rebounds per contest.

“One of the best players in the league,” Elon head coach Matt Matheny said following his team’s huge win over The Citadel Saturday night. “We’ll try to slow him down, we’ll use different guys on him. He’s very difficult to slow down and we have not been successful at it since he’s been there, so we gotta figure something out."

Since that loss to the Mountaineers, the Phoenix has shown flashes of brilliance in their last two contests. Against College of Charleston Feb. 2, the Phoenix had a 23-point lead at one point in the first half, lost it and eventually walked away with the win in double-overtime. Saturday against The Citadel, Elon got a career-high 34 points from sophomore guard Jack Isenbarger as the Phoenix won 71-66.

Isenbarger has averaged 23.2 points per game since taking over senior Drew Spradlin’s role in the starting lineup Jan. 19 against Samford, relishing the opportunity. He’s been given more time with the ball since Elon freshman guard Austin Hamilton, who had been starting at point guard since the team’s second game against the University of South Carolina Nov. 15, came down with mononucleosis. He is not expected to return for Monday’s game.

“I guess I’m just trying to improve on the 1 with Austin gone,” he said. “He’s been so big for us this year and I’ve just been working on taking advantage of the opportunities that you get when you play the point.”

Something the Phoenix is going to contest with is the big men of Appalachian State. Williamson (3rd in the SoCon with 7.2 rebounds per game) and big senior center Isaac Butts (5.6 rpg) form a powerful one-two punch of a duo down low for the Mountaineers, something Elon struggled to contain last time these teams met. Elon sophomore forward Lucas Troutman got outworked and outmuscled in the post that night, but has since shown a marked improvement.

“I think Lucas is playing more aggressively,” Matheny said Saturday night. “I thought we were aggressive offensively (tonight), Lucas has done that the past two games.”

Isenbarger also points out that the Phoenix have been more “aggressive” the last two games, saying that Elon played more on their heels against Appalachian State in the last matchup.

Troutman and Beaumont in particular will have to play on their toes against the Mountaineers if the Phoenix stand a chance of winning this crucial SoCon game. That will have to, in Beaumont’s opinion, involve leaving the incident with Healy behind, as he doesn’t see anything especially physical happening during the game. He also wants to play Monday night remembering what happened last time these teams met.

“More important than these wins is remembering what happened when we played them last time,” he said. “They definitely dug into us and really kind of ran the whole game when we were down 15, 17 for a while. I think it left a bad taste in a lot of our teammates’ mouths. That’s what we should really use. The momentum is a boost, a two-game winning streak, that’s really good, but more importantly remembering what they did last time. It’s nice though because sometimes over time, bad tastes in our mouth will fade and we’ll forget what happened. But now, it’s fresh in our heads: they did that last week, it’s time to do the same thing back to them.”

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PROBABLE STARTING LINEUPS

APP. STATE: Fr. G Mike Neal (6.4 ppg, 3.1 apg), Jr. G Jamaal Trice (11.0 ppg, 2.9 rpg), Fr. G Tab Hamilton (7.9 ppg, 1.4 rpg), Sr. F Andre Williamson (10.1 ppg, 7.2 rpg), Jr. F Nathan Healy (4.4 ppg, 3.4 rpg)

ELON: So. G Jack Isenbarger (13.3 ppg, 3.7 rpg), Sr. G Drew Spradlin (9.2 ppg, 4.0 rpg), So. G Sebastian Koch (8.7 ppg, 5.5 rpg), So. F Ryley Beaumont (6.0 ppg, 5.2 rpg), So. F Lucas Troutman (13.0 ppg, 6.0 rpg)[/box]