ELON, N.C. – After being tossed a shot-clock grenade, sophomore guard
Maraja Pass had no choice but to shoot from the left wing as the buzzer ticked down. Despite being a 0-of-11 shooter from three-point range entering the attempt, Pass hoisted a contested triple from deep.
The ball rattled in, leading to an eruption from the Phoenix bench, as they joyously celebrated their 5'4" guard's first trey of the season. It was just that type of afternoon for Elon.
"My teammates always believe in me," Pass said. "They always tell me to shoot my open shots. And I was just so happy to be open that time, and I knocked it down."
The make gave the Elon women's basketball team a commanding 19-point lead with fewer than four minutes remaining against Hofstra on Sunday afternoon. Her three-pointer, which notched 10 points for Pass, marked her first double-figure outing of the season.
The bucket also meant she was the fourth Elon player on the afternoon to reach double-digits, joining Raven Preston (16),
Jayda Angel (14) and
Iycez Adams (12).
"As a team, we have a certain type of belief in each other, so every game when we go out there, we know it could be a certain person's night," Pass said.
Pass explained that when the offense and scoring efforts come by way of Elon playing by committee, the results that follow can be remarkable.
"The coaches say, 'It's amazing what can happen when nobody cares about the credit,'" Pass said.
Head coach Charlotte Smith praised Pass for her selfless style of play and leadership approach.
"She doesn't care about the shine. Doesn't care about the glory," Smith said of Pass. "At the end of the day, it's all about the W and she does whatever it takes to get that win."
The finishing touches gave the Phoenix a dominant 70-51 victory over the Pride and improved its record to 10-6 overall and 4-1 in the CAA.
The win capped a 2-0 weekend for Elon, which began with a Friday night tilt against Stony Brook. After scoring just 13 points in the opening half against the Seawolves, Elon trailed by 10 going into the locker room.
Despite the poor first-half shooting, the message from Smith was clear: "Weather the storm."
With Elon ranking third in the CAA in opponent field-goal percentage at 38.5%, the Phoenix defense strapped down, and the offense found a way to play within itself.
"We can't always control whether [our] shots fall, but we're going to be great defensively and we're going to rebound," Smith said. "We know what we're capable of, so you just have to focus on not what's going on in the moment, but who you know yourself to be."
After outscoring Stony Brook 47-25 thanks to a second-half surge en route to a 60-48 win, the Elon momentum seemingly carried into the Sunday matinee against Hofstra.
The Elon defense held the Seawolves to 9.8 points below its season average and the Pride to 9.2 points below its average. Additionally, the Phoenix made good use of its defense on the offensive end, scoring 43 points from turnovers and 29 from fast break opportunities in its last two outings.
"Defensively, we continue to be relentless, and we create a lot of easy opportunities off of our defense," Smith said. "That just gives everybody a lot of energy when you can get those easy transition scores."
In its last six quarters, the Phoenix have outscored its opponents 117-71. In the second half against Stony Brook, Elon shot 19-of-31, good for 61.3%.
In the tilt against Hofstra, the Phoenix shot a blistering 50% on 27-of-54 from the field and went 6-of-11 from long-range. Elon matched its season-high in field goal percentage and set a new best in three-point percentage at 54.5%.
"Anytime you can shoot over 50% from the two and the three, you give yourself a chance to be successful," Smith said.
Smith explained that Elon has several lethal scoring options, noting the Phoenix could go "10-deep" if needed, reaffirming why she recruited the players she did.
"Everybody that goes in the game is a weapon," Smith said. "We recruit weapons. We don't recruit people who aren't weapons."
Smith said as the season has progressed, the team has continually improved its offensive chemistry. She explained that by figuring out the "strength zones" of the Elon rotation, the coaching staff has been able to strategically position the players in optimal positions to score.
Multiple times throughout the game, the Phoenix played deep into multiple possessions. Even with the clock ticking down, Elon seemingly always managed to stay composed and get a good shot.
"We have talented guards that can handle the basketball, that can create one-on-one late clock," Smith said. "We just felt like we could do something where we did a little bit of isolation, maybe just a quick little screen, where they could just operate."
With the pair of weekend wins, Elon has sole possession of second place in the CAA at 4-1, trailing just 6-0 North Carolina A&T, who the Phoenix lost to in its conference opener.
The CAA record thus far marks Elon's best start to conference play since the 2016-17 season when the Phoenix started 5-1. That year, Elon went on to win the CAA Championship and took a trip to the NCAA Tournament as a No. 11 seed.
Smith said the balanced scoring her squad has displayed this year is reminiscent of her 2017 and 2018 CAA title teams, which had several different scoring options.
"That was the beauty of our championship teams, is that you couldn't shut one person down and shut down the whole system," Smith said.
Smith said she is excited and hopeful about what the rest of the season holds for her team. She explained that because her squad has gone through growing pains over the course of the year, she has been pleased to see how far they have come in just 16 games.
"This is what I've seen from the beginning, but it's fighting through the process to get to where we are now," Smith said.
Being picked to finish seventh in the CAA entering the season gave Smith's squad a goal. She explained that since then, her team has been attempting "to go higher."
"Preseason selections, that stuff doesn't matter," Smith said. "We were judged with outdated information. This is a completely different team, and we know what we're capable of doing, and as long as we have the belief inside of us, that's all that matters."
'Rising Phoenix' is a student-led initiative to cover Elon Athletics. Through innovative content creation and storytelling, Elon University students will have the opportunity to highlight the moments, people and events that make an impact, leveraging the athletic department's various web and social media platforms for distribution. Follow Rising Phoenix on X (@EURisingPhoenix) and Instagram (@elonrisingphoenix). Interested in joining this initiative as a content creator (video, graphics, writing, storytelling, or more)? Contact Chase Strawser at cstrawser@elon.edu.
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