Mocs 71, Elon 65

After all my talk about how much I wanted to beat Elon, I am very satisfied to come away with a win. I did not feel like the Mocs played particularly well. But they came up with the big plays.

The Mocs dominated the boards, 46-29. That was one of the biggest differences in the game. Jefferson came up with ten, and no starter came up with fewer than the five that the Bell had. Wattad and Early both had seven, Saffore and Taylor both came up with six.

Early and Jefferson were hampered by foul trouble, as both had four fouls. That really presented problems to the Mocs.

But Bell came up with 23 points, with Wattad had 16 and Jefferson adding ten. Maybe most importantly, they held one of the Top 50 teams in the nation in scoring to just 65 points. The Phoenix shot just 39% from the floor as well. Yes, Isenbarger exploded for 22 points. No one else on Elon hit double digits. Spradlin was the only Phoenix player to collect more than three rebounds, and he had ten.

The Mocs, of course, were also exposed from the free throw line again. They shot 17 of 29 from the free throw line. Wattad and Bell combined to go 10 of 12. The rest of the team shot 7 of 17. Watson also played entirely too many minutes with nine- but with Early and Jefferson both with four fouls, he was forced to play some. Burroughs could have gotten more than five minutes, but he had three fouls.

The Mocs were down two at halftime, in a half that they did not play well. They played significantly better in the second half, and that was why they won.

The referees called far too many three second calls and carries. I didn't see the game, but I have rarely heard a game with so many of those calls. The Mocs were lucky to survive that.

Here's the deal- Wofford, the reigning champs, struggled to beat Elon at Elon a few weeks ago. The Mocs now have three road wins for the win- more than they had all of last year. The Mocs have now won one conference road game- equalling the number from a year ago. The Mocs are 3-0 in Southern Conference play. All of those have come against North teams. Yes, the South is better than the North. But the Mocs play in the North, so the tiebreakers will come down to how they perform in the division. They have played very well so far.

The Mocs move to 5-6 on the year, with two games against non-D1's coming up before they are playing a D1 team again in the Dr Pepper Classic. If the Mocs could win all three of those, they would be 8-6 overall, and 6-6 against D1 teams. That would be impressive given where they were about three weeks ago.

GO MOCS!