Seawolves Fans

ELON (3-19, 3-7 CAA)
Last Game: Elon 72, Drexel 58 on 1/18/23
Last 10: 3-7
Last Game vs SBU: First-ever meeting
Checkmate Guess the Line: Stony Brook -3.5 (aargh! late change from 4!)
NET Ranking: Stony Brook 319, Elon 346
KenPom Rating: Stony Brook 323, Elon 335
KenPom Prediction: Stony Brook 69, Elon 65
Watch: https://flosports.link/3O0u9uZ
Listen: N/A
Notables:
6-0/160 gr G Sean Halloran 13.3 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 4.2 apg, 2.0 spg, .914 FT%
6-5/200 sr G Zac Ervin 10.8 ppg, .340 3-pt FG%
6-5/200 fr F Max Mackinnon 10.7 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 1.1 spg, .482 FG%
6-5/200 gr F Torrence Watson 9.3 ppg, 5.3 rpg, .800 FT%
6-10/220 so F Max Sherry 9.0 ppg, 4.3 rpg, .550 FG%

Oof, had this prepared early in the week and never found time to circle back. Better a little brief and just hours before tipoff than never.

Elon is coming off its first Division I season. Waiting until mid December felt like an eternity for us; imagine the ire if it was almost February! But the win was a real good one – an 18-point thrashing of a solid Drexel team. I sense that Elon's better than its 3-19 record shows. They were up at halftime against Charleston and Hofstra before fizzling out. They were right there at home against a good Greensboro team, at home against Towson and at Delaware but didn't prevail. Yeah, maybe that's hand-picking games, but while they have many losses, they haven't had many bad ones. They have trouble stringing together a full 40 minutes.

Halloran's yet another case of a player coming up from Division II and having an impact. We saw it with Sylla at Towson, Nelson all the way up from D-III at W&M, and now Halloran, who left Belmont Abbey as its all-time leader in assists and has the reins of the Phoenix now. There may be more than I'm not thinking of. We so often see players drop down and begin producing at lower levels, but with the ease of transferring, it feels like we're seeing more going the other way. Of the others, I like the kid Sherry. He's a nice lefty who has some agility and good feel in the paint.

Elon's going to hit us with the 2-3 zone, so let's see how we handle that. It's so so easy to just shoot over it, but I don't know that any of us want to see that. I like Policelli operating at the free throw line here, where he can knock down the jumper or take it to the tin. I was so impressed with the variety of scoring we saw from him in the Hampton game. Worth keeping an eye on down the stretch: he has 759 career points at Stony Brook (he did have 18 at Dayton). He'd have to go on quite a run to get to 1,000 (about 24 ppg per night), but he also has to shoulder the load offensively with TSM out. So maybe? Especially if we win a game in the CAAs?

The three is not a strength for Elon, yet while we should see at least some zone, I do think we have the personnel to match up with them if need be.

Big picture: Some bad news – The CAA is now one spot ahead of the America East in KenPom's conference rankings. Some good/bad news depending on who you ask – After beating Charleston, Hofstra's on the verge of breaking into the top 100. It's good for the conference, but now that we'll face them twice a year, we can't claim to be Long Island's team if we're not competing with them. Saturday might be a tough one. And mark my words, we're a one-bid league this year whether Charleston wins the conference tournament or not.

Can we get a W here even without an otherworldly effort from Policelli? I mean, that's something you just don't see and can't count on. But we kind of unleashed Muratori and Nahar and they were pretty solid. The training wheels are off for TO (37 minutes!), and man, I think he's going to be excellent for us if he sticks around (it's sad that you have to put that phrase after every sentence when looking toward the future). I've seen enough juice from Elon to suspect that they can compete here, and the line shows that. But we have performed well on the home floor, and I think this is a game where our bigs can do some damage on both ends. Let's see if we can make it two in a row here.

Really feel like the CAA being this is poor is an outlier year. This is a game where I wish TSM is playing to operate in the free throw line area to rise up and hit threes with Policelli on the outside as a floor spacer. Im ready for the training wheels to come off for Nahar too better looking shot than Sarvan. Maybe Fitz gets some iso touches near the rim he needs to show up very good opportunity tn to get back to .500 in the league.

Really feel like the CAA being this is poor is an outlier year. This is a game where I wish TSM is playing to operate in the free throw line area to rise up and hit threes with Policelli on the outside as a floor spacer. Im ready for the training wheels to come off for Nahar too better looking shot than Sarvan. Maybe Fitz gets some iso touches near the rim he needs to show up very good opportunity tn to get back to .500 in the league.

Not sure how long he will be out, but speedy recovery to TSM (tonight?). What we've seen from Nahar makes me think he will grow into an offensive presence with a nice touch from three.

With how banged up we are +/- doesn't tell much when our starters play so many minutes

Thanks for posting the +/-. Can you post the link to this? Two observations: Of the starters, no surprise Policelli is much better than the other bigs especially Sarvan. Pretty glaring that Pettway has equivalent minutes to Roberts and he is 70 points better. Based off this I'd say we should run TO, Pettway, TSM, Frankie and Fitzmorris with Nahar soon off the bench.

CAA is still way better than the AE. Every one of our scholarship sports is in a better league as well.

Not sure what's worse the defense or the attendance.

IMHO I dont care about kenpom...I want schools with name recognition, with as many of them in the top-100 into the top 50. I think the CAA achieves that on a better level than the AE. Also aside from men's BB it is an upgrade in all other sports including LAX (I think)

Its an upgrade for sure. The AE is a mess and has been for years.