ELON, N.C. – The Elon University women’s basketball team secured the 2017 Colonial Athletic Association regular season title following an 82-48 victory over UNCW on Wednesday, March 1, at Alumni Gym.
The championship is Elon’s first since moving to the Division I ranks. With the victory, the Phoenix earns the top overall seed in the 2017 CAA Women’s Basketball Championship March 8-11 in Harrisonburg, Va.
“It was a well-put together game on both ends of the floor, offensively and defensively,” said Elon head coach Charlotte Smith. “We started out really keying in on what we wanted to with getting the ball inside and I feel like we did a really good job of that. Lauren Brown was really aggressive offensively. We talked about not settling for shots, putting the ball on the floor and trying to draw fouls and she did an outstanding job of that. It was just a well-played game on both ends of the floor and it feels amazing to be CAA regular season champions.”
The 34-point margin of victory is the largest for Elon over a CAA foe since joining the conference in 2014-15. The Phoenix finishes the regular season with a 24-6 overall mark, including a 16-2 record in league play.
Lauren Brown poured in a game-high 25 points in the win, going 7-of-10 from the floor and 8-of-9 at the free throw line. Jenifer Rhodes was dominant for the Phoenix inside all night, scoring 21 points on 10-of-16 shooting and hauling down nine boards – a game high. Elon outscored UNCW in the paint by a 50-8 margin in the win and hauled down 20 offensive rebounds that led to 25 second-chance points.
Elon led for all but 21 seconds of tonight’s game, taking a 38-27 lead into the locker room at intermission.
The Phoenix took a 20-point lead with 7:01 to play in the third period after Brown connected on one of her team-best three triples to give her squad a 49-29 lead. Later in the third, Jada Graves pushed the Elon advantage to 30 after her layup with 1:13 remaining made it a 63-33 game.
Elon kept its foot on the gas in the final 10 minutes, securing the win heading into the CAA Women’s Basketball Championship. Elon earns a first-round bye as the top overall seed and will face the winner of eighth-seeded Towson and ninth-seeded Hofstra on Thursday, March 9, at 12 p.m. in Harrisonburg.