Team #108 - Elon

On Saturday November 19th, 2022, I saw my 108th Division One College Basketball teams. On this occasion, I saw the Elon Phoenix take on the North Carolina State Wildcats. Elon is the 1st team that I have seen out of the CAA. I saw North Carolina State back in 2012 at the NCAA Tourney in Columbus OH. I will actually see NC State later in the season in Chicago as they take on Vandy. Elon has a 1-3 record on the year. They most recently played North Dakota. They dropped this contest by a score of 77-73 The leading scorer for Elon is Sean Halloran averaging 12.3 PPG. North Carolina State has a 3-0 record on the year. They most recently played FIU and they won by a score of 107-74. The leading scorer for the Wolfpack is Jarkel Joiner averaging 20.3 PPG. I expect Joiner and Sophomore Terquavion Smith to lead the charge against Elon.

I will start this article by saying this. NC State is a very talented team. I am willing to say there aren't many backcourts better than Terquavion Smith and Jarkel Joiner in the ACC. It just comes down to how much will those care in a game. The biggest vibe I got from this game early on was NC State thought they could just kind of show up and win by 20. Elon was smaller than NC State and certainly did not have the athletes that Elon did. But in the first half NC State seemed content just to shoot threes in hopes of blowing out Elon early. That idea really didn't work out too well. There was multiple times in the first half that I felt Jack Clark and Terquavion Smith could have passed up on a three and attacked the basket. I feel like this is a common mistake that many power five teams make early in the non-conference. Maybe some of it is intentional so you don't show much on film. Maybe some games the players just don't care about the opponent. In Elon's defense, I thought for their ability they played a decent first half. They didn't get trigger happy from three. They just did what the defense gave them. Torrence Watson was a bright spot for the Phoenix in the 1st half. Watson, a former Mizzou transfer had eight first half points for Elon. He was very aggressive on the offensive end and not scared of the moment. While I expected the combo of Smith and Joiner to lead the charge for NC State. Joiner found himself in foul trouble and did not score in the first half. Jack Clark was the leading scorer for NC State in the first half with 13 points. At the half, NC State found themselves up by a score of 37-27.

In the second half, it just felt that NC State was toying with Elon. Elon would cut the lead to five on a couple of occasion but every time someone would step up and hit a shot to get the Wolfpack lead back to a 3 or 4 score game. This was one of those games where you just looked at the scoreboard multiple times and would say well there is no way Elon is scoring that many more points than NC State. The game was truly never in doubt despite how low the difference might have been. Torrence Watson was once again a bright spot for Elon with 12 second half points to give him 20 total for the game. NC State did a nice job of limiting Elon's leading scorer Sean Halloran to just 9 points which was three points under his season average. All five starts for NC State had at least seven points. Jack Clark lead the way with 21 points, despite shooting 3-10 from three. It felt like at times, he should of had way more than 21. Trequavion Smith had 16 points on 16 shots. Casey Morsell finished with 15 points. When the final buzzer sounded, NC State found themselves a 74-63 winner and improved to 4-0 on the year. NC State now heads to the Bahamas for the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis. They will take on the Kansas Jayhawks on Wednesday November 23rd. Elon now 1-4 on the season travels to Jacksonville, Alabama. They will take on the Jacksonville State Gamecocks on Tuesday November 22nd. 

The 2nd game of my North Carolina road trip will be tomorrow as we head to the Dean Dome to watch James Madison and North Carolina do battle.