In basketball, each team has five players on the court for a reason.
It’s not meant to be an individual sport. Sure, teams can rely on one star player to take the load and carry them, but one person can only do so much.
And the five starters can only do so much.
Elon University, now 8-8 on the season and 1-1 in Southern Conference play after a win over Appalachian State University, has had plenty of productivity from its five starters. Senior forwards Lucas Troutman and Ryley Beaumont have played fairly well, while sophomore guard Tanner Samson was showing signs of greatness at the beginning of the season too. Senior guard Sebastian Koch has proven that he is a legitimate threat from three-point range, and junior guard Austin Hamilton has done a good job of facilitating the offense.
So, what about everyone else?
Elon has not seen the same output from its bench that it’s seen from the starters. In a loss to Western Carolina University, the Phoenix had only five points from bench players. Considering one starter – Samson – did not tally a single point, that’s clearly not a winning formula. Elon only had 10 bench points in a loss to Georgetown University – nine of those coming from senior guard Jack Isenbarger, who started last season but missed some games early on this year due to injury.
“We do need energy from the bench,” Elon head coach Matt Matheny said. “We’d like production from the bench. But, we’re still building the team.”
Four starters – Beaumont, Troutman, Samson, and Koch – are averaging at least 29 minutes per game. Hamilton (25.3 minutes per game) has been a sharing a lot of time with Isenbarger (20.6 minutes per game) since he returned on Nov. 18.
Seeing Isenbarger get up to speed has been great. His leadership and ability to hold the team together in tough situations will be vital to the team’s success in SoCon play. But, is it time for him to return to the starting lineup?
“We’ve talked about it,” Matheny said. “I’m not sure. What we’ll do is go back and look at the film and analyze, coaches overanalyze, and critique. That is something we’ve considered. We’ve considered putting other people in the starting lineup too.”
Samson has been shut down in Elon’s last three games, held to point totals of three, zero, and two. After making at least four three-pointers in nine of the team’s first 12 games, Samson has only made four total in the last four outings.
Matheny said that is much due to opponents centering their scouting reports on taking Samson’s jump shot away. Beaumont says that there are no hard feelings from anyone on the starting lineup and that there’s too much focus on who is starting.
“Jack is one of the most selfless people I know,” Beaumont said in regards to whether Isenbarger minds coming off of the bench. “This team, in general, is selfless in the fact that it doesn’t matter how much you’re playing and it doesn’t matter how well you’re playing. It’s about the team, not the persons. We all have faith in what coach is doing. There are so many x’s and o’s that go into who starts and who’s playing.”
Elon had one of its best bench outputs of the season against Appalachian State, getting 32 points and 13 rebounds from non-starters. Junior forward Ryan Winters led the way with 14 points, while Isenbarger added 12. Matheny said, though, that the team used an entirely different rotation since Koch (common cold) was not 100 percent. Samson was the only starter to play more than 30 minutes.
Matheny noted that he was pleased with the way sophomore center Tony Sabato (four points and four rebounds) played against Appalachian State and that freshman forward Christian Hairston played two minutes that were described as “good minutes.” Junior guard Kevin Blake (3.6 points per game in 10.9 minutes per game) is another guy who comes off the bench and plays well consistently.
Elon plays host to The Citadel on Jan. 11 at 7 p.m. There’s still a long way to go in the regular season, and Matheny emphasized that what he saw against Appalachian State was a “step forward” for his team.
For a team that has had trouble with some injuries, more production from the bench could give way to many more forward steps for the Phoenix.