ELON, N.C. – Ola Atoyebi poured in a season-high and contest-best 20 points – 15 in the first half – to pace Elon to a 56-54 Southern Conference men’s basketball win over The Citadel Saturday night at Alumni Gym. Atoyebi knocked down eight of his nine shots from the field en route to posting the fourth 20-point performance of his career.
The first half featured all 10 of the game’s lead changes and all five of its ties – the last one at 24-24 following Chris Long’s free throw for the Phoenix (2-4 overall, 1-1 SoCon) with 1:42 remaining before the intermission. Atoyebi hit a bucket in the paint to ignite an old-fashioned three-point play and push Elon ahead at 27-24 – the eventual halftime margin – with 59 ticks to go before the break.
The Phoenix opened the second stanza with a 13-8 spurt to extend the edge to 40-32 on another old-fashioned three-point play by Atoyebi with 14:35 left in the contest. On the strength of an 11-6 surge, the Bulldogs (5-4, 1-1) clawed their way back to within 46-43 on a jumper by Austin Dahn with 6:26 to play. Devan Carter knocked down a pair of jump shots – the first one from three-point range – as Elon fattened its lead to 51-43 with 4:51 remaining.
The Citadel answered by reeling off seven consecutive points, drawing to within 51-50 on a three-point bucket by Dahn at the 3:03 mark. A free throw by Carter and a layup by Long enabled the Phoenix to fashion a 54-50 advantage with 1:41 left. Cameron Wells scored in the paint to bring the Bulldogs to within 54-52 with 1:26 to go, but Monty Sanders drained a pair of free throws to stretch the Elon edge to 56-52 with 16 ticks to play. Wells’ inside bucket with nine seconds left decided the final score.
Carter hauled in a team-best and career-high eight rebounds to go with his season-high eight points while Long added nine points and issued a contest-best eight assists for the third time this season. Long has collected five or more assists in each of the Phoenix’s six games this year. Elon also received a game-high three steals from Brett James.
Demetrius Nelson put forth a double-double performance for The Citadel, amassing 14 points and a game-high 12 rebounds. Dahn chipped in 14 points and Wells notched 13 points as the Bulldogs won the battle of the boards 30-24 and outscored the Phoenix 28-22 in the paint, 16-8 off turnovers and 8-4 off second chances. The Citadel surrendered 12 turnovers to 13 by Elon.
“We needed this win like a drowning man needs air,” Elon coach Ernie Nestor said. “It was a hard-fought game. Either team could’ve won. The effort was significant on both sides. Our quality of effort was high, but I don’t know that our quality of play was always high. You win games with defense. You always win games of this nature with good defense. The kind of team we are, that’s how we’re going to have win games because we’re just not a real overpowering team. We needed this win because this revalidates what we’ve been doing.”
The Phoenix fired 51.2 percent (21 of 41) from the field – 36.4 percent (4 of 11) from behind the arc – and 71.4 percent (10 of 14) from the free throw line while the Bulldogs shot 42.3 percent (22 of 52) from the floor – 23.8 percent (5 of 21) from three-point land – and 62.5 percent (5 of 8) from the charity stripe.
