The Elon University Phoenix men’s basketball team defeated the Hofstra Pride 84-70 Saturday night in Hempstead. The Pride has now lost eight of its last nine games dating back to the beginning of January, falling to 2-8 in CAA play and 10-13 overall.
Eli Pemberton and Rokas Gustys were both out with lower body injuries and did not play against Elon.
Gustys leads the Pride with 12.8 rebounds per game, and Pemberton leads in scoring with 13.5 points per game.
“I thought that the guys in uniform played hard,” said head coach Joe Mihalich. “Hopefully we can get some guys healthy. I’m glad January is over.”
Mihalich quoted College Football Hall of Fame head coach Lou Holtz when talking about his injured players, “Don’t talk to people about your problems, because half of them don’t care, and the other half are glad you got them.”
Elon dominated the first half against the Pride. Phoenix forward Brian Dawkins led all first half scoring with 16 points on 6-7 shooting, including 2-2 from beyond the arc.
The Pride came out of halftime strong, cutting down the nine-point deficit and tying the game at 49 just six minutes into the second half.
The Pride was able to get its lead to four, but after a few turnovers, momentum stopped as Tyler Seibring hit two threes to take back the lead for the Phoenix. Seibring ended the game leading all scorers with 23 points on 9-13 shooting.
“We had trouble guarding their big guy. I thought [Brian] Dawkins took advantage of that matchup [with Sabety] a little bit. He could drive it and he could shoot it too, those big guys aren’t used to guarding someone who could do both. We did get a little tired,” said Mihalich. “It was a tough matchup for him.”
Already with a shortened rotation, Hofstra got into foul trouble with Wright-Foreman, Sabety and Ty Greer all picking up two personal fouls in the first half. Greer ended up fouling out and Wright-Foreman finished with four fouls.
“If I worried about anything going into the game…it was foul trouble, and sure enough, we got nothing but foul trouble,” said Mihalich.
“There are no excuses whether we lose one guy, two guys, three guys, we still all have to play hard at the end of the day and it just came down to being gritty to win the basketball game,” said Hofstra guard Justin Wright-Foreman.
In Hofstra’s previous matchup with Elon, the Phoenix hit 14 shots from beyond the arc. The Pride was able to limit it to 7-21 in this matchup, but Phoenix big men were able to take advantage of Gustys absence.
“They found our Achilles’ heel,” said Mihalich. “They are a good offensive team…they could really score, there are a lot of tough matchups.”
“With all due respect to everyone we played, we don’t feel like there is a team we can’t beat,” said Mihalich.
The Pride have two more games at home against the Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens on Feb. 2 and then against the Drexel Dragons two days later.
