HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. – Through a closed door, a jubilant celebration could be heard among the victorious Elon Phoenix from outside the visiting locker room at the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex at Hofstra on Saturday.
Given the prior years of struggling and the low preseason expectations relative to its current situation, Elon deserved to rejoice.
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Suddenly, the Phoenix are rising.
After four years in the Big South Conference and 11 more in the Southern Conference, Elon, now in its 12th season in the Coastal Athletic Association, has had only three winning seasons in the CAA overall, posting just one winning record in CAA play (10-8 within the league nine years ago).
For the first time in consecutive seasons, and for only the third time since joining the league, the Phoenix (12-7, 4-2 CAA) have a winning conference record, one-third of the way into CAA play, after an impressive, hard-fought, 89-85 upset road win over the Hofstra Pride.
Coupled with Charleston’s loss at Stony Brook a few hours later, Elon happily found itself in unfamiliar territory, locked in a three-way tie for second-place with Hofstra and Charleston, two games behind North Carolina-Wilmington.
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Quite good, so far, for a team picked 12th in the 13-team CAA.
The Phoenix’s resurgence has been helped by learning some valuable lessons.
One of those was figuring out how to be resilient after a disappointing defeat. Another is playing good team ball rather than leaning too much on one the CAA’s leading scorers, graduate forward Chandler Cuthrell, who faced a showdown against Hofstra junior guard Cruz Davis.
Head coach Billy Taylor, in his fourth year with Elon, was very pleased with his team’s performance after the Phoenix lost as favorites on Thursday, by seven points, at Northeastern (2-4 CAA), a team that Elon defeated rather easily in its conference opener, 103-91, at home.
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“I think we’ve got a really good basketball team,” Taylor said. “I was really proud of our guys for the effort, to bounce back after a tough loss at Northeastern and to come down here to a very hostile environment, [and play well]. I have tremendous respect for (Hofstra head coach) Speedy (Claxton) and his staff, the job they do, the players they have, they certainly set a standard in our league, and I thought our guys were able to rise to the challenge and compete at a high level.
“We had 18 turnovers against Northeastern, which is not the way that we typically play,” he added. “Today was more indicative. We had 22 assists on 29 field goals, only seven turnovers, we shared [the ball], we moved it, guys got touches in the right spots. … I was really proud of our guys for understanding [after] watching film, to put it together, and figure out how to be successful today.”
Cuthrell said of the loss at Northeastern: “I feel like losing that game was a wakeup call. I feel like we got too comfortable out there. We felt like it was a very winnable game, [but] we didn’t go out there and show it.”
Elon demonstrated that a lot better at Hofstra (13-6, 4-2 CAA), with Cuthrell (as he normally does) leading the way.
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Cuthrell matched the 13 points that Hofstra sophomore forward Joshua DeCady scored in the first half to help the Phoenix overcome an 8-1 deficit at the start and lead, 43-35, by halftime.
Davis managed only five first-half points but outscored Cuthrell, 28-10, in the second half, and 33-23 overall, trying to carry his team to a comeback win. But he missed eight of his last nine shots after starting the second half 8 for 9.
Entering the game with just four more total points than Cuthrell (385-381) for the CAA season lead, Davis finished the game with a conference-leading 22.0 points per game, slightly ahead of Cuthrell’s 21.3 points.
However, it was Cuthrell’s better supporting cast that allowed Elon to hand Hofstra its second straight loss after the Pride’s 4-0 start to league play.
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DeCady (21 points) was Cruz’s only sidekick to score in double figures, whereas Cuthrell’s performance was complemented well by sophomore guard Bryson Cokley (19 points), graduate forward Kacper Klaczek (15 points), and graduate guard Ja’Juan Carr (11 points).
Eight points each from junior guard Randall Pettus II and sophomore center Caleb Middleton neutralized nine points recorded by freshman guard Preston Edmead and eight points from reserve center Silas Sunday for Hofstra.
Although the Pride were able to tie the game, 52-52, on a Cruz 3-pointer, with 14:52 left, they led for only 8:48 and never did so over the final 26:49.
“Cruz Davis is a hell of a player,” Cuthrell said. “We knew that going into this game. We knew he is one of the best players in college basketball. We tried our best to try to contain him, but we have a great team. That’s the beauty of our team. It’s not just one guy, we have multiple players who can score in double figures, and that’s what helps us at the end of the day.”
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Taylor added: “For Chandler to get almost a quiet 23, because we had three other guys in double figures, [was great]. I thought Cokley was fantastic off the bench, Caleb Middleton [had] eight points and four offensive rebounds, Kacper Klaczek has been a double-digit scorer for us, so many guys are really stepping up for us.”
Having a variety of different contributors, Elon leads the CAA in scoring (85.2 points per game) and field goal percentage (48.2 percent), and is second only to Hofstra’s 37.7 percent in 3-point field goal percentage (36.5 percent).
With Cuthrell, Pettus (13.3 points per game), Klaczek (12.3 points), and Cokley (12.1 points), the Phoenix are the only CAA team to boast as many as four players ranking among the top 21 scorers in the conference.
Although Elon is only fifth in the CAA in free-throw percentage (71.7 percent) and Hofstra is first (74.3 percent), it was the Phoenix that drew more fouls (22-19) while shooting free throws slightly better (22-for-27) than the Pride (16-for-21) to hold off a Hofstra comeback attempt. Cuthrell led the way there as well, going 8 for 9 from the foul line. He even took full advantage of a costly Pride miscue late in the game. After missing the front end of a one-and-one and getting a reprieve, Cuthrell swished two key free throws following a Hofstra lane violation, for a 78-73 lead with 3:50 left.
“We had some guys really step up,” Taylor noted. “Randall Pettus made some big ones down the stretch, Bryson Cokley, Chandler Cuthrell, so we had guys step up and make their free throws down the stretch, which allowed us to close the game and continue to play with a lead.”
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While Claxton felt Hofstra beat ultimately itself with mistakes, he conceded of Elon, “Give them credit. They made some tough shots down the stretch.”
Adapting further from the Northeastern loss, Elon made sure it didn’t settle from the perimeter again while thoroughly dominating Hofstra by a tone-setting 28-4 margin in the paint during the opening half. Although that category was even (12-12) in the second half, the damage was already done for the Pride.
“Our coach emphasized not settling for jump shots like our last game,” Cuthrell said. “We felt like we shot ourselves in the foot by just shooting the ball the whole game rather than penetrating the defense and getting to the basket.”
Along the same lines, Taylor said of the paint production, “It’s always important for us. We love to shoot 3s, but you have to have balance to your offense, and I thought we were able to get the ball to the paint early and to the free throw line, which was really important for us, especially on the road, [where] you can’t just live and die with jump shots. I thought we did a nice job of having a good mixture today.”
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So far this season, it hasn’t mattered to Elon that seemingly no one gave the Phoenix a chance to be among the CAA contenders.
Of course, Elon – which likewise started 4-2 within the CAA last year, but then went 4-8 to finish with yet another losing conference record (8-10) – still has to prove it can sustain its early-season success this year.
And the Phoenix, which was a 9 seed twice and an 11 seed once in the CAA tournament over the past three years, has yet to win a CAA tournament game under Taylor, and hasn’t won one since the asterisked, Covid-shortened 2021 season, when Elon lost under former head coach Mike Schrage as an No. 8 seed in the CAA finals to No. 6-seed Drexel.
However, not only what the Phoenix have done thus far in CAA play, but also during their earlier non-conference schedule this season may suggest that Elon could be a lot tougher out in this year’s league tournament.
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In December, the Phoenix drilled one of the better Southern Conference teams (Wofford) by 21 points on the road before later upsetting Atlantic 10 opponent Richmond by three points at home, and surprisingly taking Atlantic Coast Conference foe Virginia Tech to overtime in a one-point road loss.
It seems that being taken lightly has helped Elon.
“We all understand what we have in the room,” Cuthrell said. “We knew that, obviously, from the outside, looking in, that nobody really expected us to do anything, but we’ve used that as motivation and fuel to go out there each and every single day and play hard, and give ourselves [moments] like this [win at Hofstra].”
The confidence from Elon’s good start is very possibly building toward something greater.
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“It makes us very dangerous,” Cuthrell said. “We’re not a team that other teams can just sleep on. The same way that we’ve got to go out there and compete every game, the other team has to do that as well. That’s our motto.”
Being a very cohesive, tight-knit group has only helped, as well.
“We always make sure that we stay together no matter what, whether we win or lose,” Cuthrell added. “We make sure that nobody branches off. We always make sure that it’s positive vibes each and every single day.”
The combination of Taylor and Cuthrell leading the Phoenix after each passed through different stops and learned along the way has been a good fit for Elon’s resurgence to this point in the year.
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Cuthrell started only one game of the 62 he evenly split as a freshman at Texas-San Antonio (where averaged 4.9 points per game) and as a sophomore at Purdue Fort Wayne (where he scored 7.4 points per game) before the Baltimore native made a major leap to start every one of the Phoenix’s games this season while so far challenging for the CAA scoring title.
“It’s a blessing,” Cuthrell said. “Our coaches, they believe in us, each and every single day. That’s one thing I noticed when I first got here, how much love and support [they have for the players], and how much confidence our coaches have in us, and they instill that into us. It goes from our coaches, to our point guards, [who] always make sure the floor is organized, to make sure we’re in the right spots to be successful.”
As for his own journey, after being recruited by Notre Dame legend Digger Phelps in the early 1990s, and playing at Notre Dame under longtime college and NBA head coach John McLeod, Taylor became an assistant coach at Notre Dame in 1998-99 and then an assistant at UNC Greensboro. From there, Taylor was a head coach at Lehigh and Ball State, and then had two separate assistant stints at Iowa, with a head-coaching stop at Division II Belmont Abbey in between, before eventually completing his circuitous route to Elon.
“All of those experiences factor in, and I’m very blessed with my basketball journey,” Taylor said. “I played at the highest level, I played at Notre Dame, I coached there, I’ve been at the Big Ten at Iowa and won a Big Ten championship, and I’ve coached in Division II, and I’ve loved every step along the way. Belmont Abbey was a great stop [which] allowed me to navigate the transfer portal, the new era that we’re in with college basketball, but I love what we’ve been building here at Elon, and I’m very grateful.”
Those sentiments are surely shared by Elon fans so far this season as they hope to see Taylor, Cuthrell and the Phoenix continue to rise.
