You could feel the energy and excitement inside Alumni Gym. There was another level of buzz surrounding the Elon University men’s basketball team. Even “One Shining Moment,” the unofficial song of the NCAA Tournament, played at one point.
When the moment came and the raucous crowd settled down, head coach Matt Matheny put it out there:
“This is the year we win the tournament.”
Matheny is, of course, referencing the Southern Conference tournament in early March, in which the winner earns the much coveted berth in NCAA Tournament. On Friday Oct. 18, Phoenix fans got their first glimpse at a team selected as the favorites in the SoCon by both the media and the coaches at media day. The men’s and women’s teams collaborated for “Late Night with the Phoenix,” which featured a maroon and white scrimmage along with shooting contests and even some dancing.
“More than anything, tonight was about having fun,” Matheny said. “There’s an incredible amount of buzz right now. In the spring, summer and fall, anywhere you go on this campus or in this community, people are talking about our team.”
Matheny’s team returns all five starters from a squad that went 21-13 a year ago and earned a bid to the College Insider Tournament. This year, all signs, dreams and hopes point toward March Madness. Leading the way is senior guard Jack Isenbarger along with senior forwards Ryley Beaumont and Lucas Troutman, all of whom earned Preseason All-SoCon accolades.
“(Reaching the NCAA Tournament) would mean that Lucas Troutman, Jack Isenbarger, Ryley Beaumont, Sebastian Koch, and Egheosa Edomwonyi get to play in the NCAA Tournament,” Matheny said. “We want it for our whole program, for our coaching staff, for the players, and for the Elon community and fans. But this is (those seniors’) last shot. We want it this year, we want it every year. But to do it this year would be very special for those five seniors.”
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Both teams have been practicing for a few weeks now, but have yet to see much game-style action. That will kick into full gear when the men’s team hosts Lynchburg College on Nov. 4 and the women’s team welcomes Pfeiffer on Nov. 2, both in exhibition games. The two teams will play a season-opening doubleheader at Alumni Gym on Friday, Nov. 8, with the women playing Winston-Salem State University at 5 p.m. and the men hosting Washington & Lee at 7:30 p.m.
The night began with both the men’s and women’s team doing special dance features, including members of the Elon dance team. Troutman, a 6-foot-10, 220 pound forward from Belton, S.C., said he had the time of his life.
“(My favorite part was) embarrassing myself trying to dance to songs I’ve never heard before in my life,” Troutman said with a laugh. “I lost myself a couple times. I had no idea what was going on.”
Both teams took the court to hyped-up introductions and pump-up songs. Women’s head coach Charlotte Smith addressed the crowd, breaking the news that her team would not scrimmage due to “the injury bug.” Matheny got the crowd on its feet, and the 10-minute intersquad scrimmage began.
The team in white led the entire way, anchored by six points from Edomwonyi and four from Troutman. Beaumont missed a forty-footer at the buzzer, and the Maroon team fell, 15-12.
The most exciting part of the scrimmage was a fast break play in which Koch bounced it right off the backboard, leaving a sprinting Beaumont to leap up and slam the ball home.
“I was surprised (Koch) heard me,” Beaumont said. “The whole time I was running I was yelling, ‘Backboard, backboard, backboard!’”
The night continued with some shooting contests that brought some fans onto the court, as well as a failed half-court shot attempt by one Elon student that would have won her an all-expenses paid trip to the SoCon Tournament in March in Asheville, N.C. Players from both the men’s and women’s team stuck around to sign autographs for fans afterwards.
“My pen was running out, if that says anything,” Beaumont said in regards to how many autographs he had signed. This was the first time that the teams had held an event like this to showcase the team.
“This is a big step for us,” Troutman said. “To have something like this, a late night, like everyone else does. It lets us know that we’re getting more recognition.”
That recognition, both throughout Elon and throughout the nation, has been coming for months. USA Today predicted the Phoenix will reach the NCAA Tournament, and also said that it has the potential to make a deep run in the tournament. Troutman was named to the Lou Henson Mid-Major Preseason All-American Team; The Phoenix led both SoCon Preseason polls.
So how has Matheny been managing that?
“For years, we’ve been picked (to finish) in different spots,” Matheny said. “I told our players in those times not to pay attention, because what really matters is what we do and how we prepare. The same is true this year. It’s different, but it doesn’t matter.”
Matheny went to the point of saying that he didn’t even talk to his team about the SoCon honors. He said that was because this season has been something that the players and coaches have been excited about and have been working on since April.
“This season started when we got back from Canisius (College) in the CIT,” Matheny said. “When we met as a team to start the season back in April, we had a bad taste in our mouth. We decided then, that regardless of how good we are or the veterans we have, we have to start working now.”
Elon fans saw a small dose of the work this team has put in at “Late Night.” Should that work continue, they could be seeing it mid-March on CBS.