Updated as of March 6, 2022 at 9:58 p.m. to include video.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Elon University men’s basketball team season came to an end with a 75-58 loss to the University of North Carolina Wilmington Seahawks in the quarterfinal game of the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament. Despite the Phoenix maintaining a lead for the entirety of the first half, UNCW came out flying in the second half to take the lead, and never let it go.
“They made a more conservative effort to get downhill, to crash the boards,” head coach Mike Schrage said. “I think our attention to detail wasn’t quite at the level it needed to be in the second half versus the first.”
The Phoenix, the seventh seed, came out with a point to prove, taking an early lead that stayed for the entirety of the first half. The largest lead was 14 within the first eight minutes of the half. Newly announced CAA Scholar Athlete of the Year and junior guard Hunter McIntosh ended the half with a team-high of 13 points and two rebounds himself.
A push by UNCW late in the half tightened up the score to just within three, being led by senior guard Jaylen Sims, who came into the game the Seahawks top average scorer. Sims and sophomore Jamahri Harvey kept coming at the Phoenix, but Elon managed to find a way to maintain its lead to end the half.
The second half opened with the Seahawks finally finding its footing that earned the team its number two seeding. A quick 10 points gave UNCW its first lead of the game with only three minutes drained off the clock. Sporadic shots made by the Phoenix kept Elon in it after the initial scoring spree, but the Seahawks train just could not be stopped.
McIntosh, who was the leading scorer on either team in the first half, did not make a field goal the entire second half, with only two made free throws to contribute to the score with seven minutes remaining in the half. Sophomore guard Darius Burford, the team’s leading scorer in the regular season, went scoreless from the line and the field for the second half.
“We’re going to have to grow a lot offensively in the future, those guys have been so important to us, but any team that knows their value is gonna try to make it really tough on them,” Schrage said. “Those guys had to handle the full court all game and it wears on you a little bit too.”
Schrage said after the game that it was a “tale of two halves”, saying that the team executed their game plan well in the first half, but that UNCW set the tone in the second half and carried out their game plan instead.
“Our guys were never going to quit, you could see that at the end, we kept competing and tried to keep fighting,” Schrage said. “Proud of our guys, proud of our group, proud of our seniors, I mean they’ve left their legacy here at Elon.”
One of those who left his legacy was senior forward Chuck Hannah, who Schrage referred to as one of the best leaders he has been around. Hannah said that it hadn’t hit him that it was his last game of his career, but knows that he will carry the messages he’s learned at Elon with him through the rest of his life.
“‘Never get too high, never get too low’, ‘unconditional energy’,” Hannah said. “No matter how the games go, there’s always going to be tomorrow and it's all about responding and how do you get back up on your feet when you get knocked down. All the words that coach preaches, it applies in basketball and it applies in life.”