By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
Struggling for much of the night on both ends of the floor, William & Mary had enough fight to make it a one-possession game with 4½ minutes remaining. Elon was in the early stages of a prolonged drought, and the Tribe was in position to steal one on the road.
Instead, the Tribe missed too many opportunities in a 61-54 loss Thursday at the Schar Center. After cutting the Phoenix's lead to 52-49 with 4:28 remaining, W&M ended the night by going 1-of-5 from the field and 3-of-8 from the free throw line.
The Tribe (4-17, 3-5 CAA) trailed 44-31 with 13:56 left but had four chances to either tie or take the lead in the final four minutes.
"I was certainly proud of the way we battled back after we got down 13 in the second half," Tribe coach
Dane Fischer said. "The guys stuck together and strung together some stops to give themselves a chance.
"But then we struggled down the stretch offensively. We turned the ball over a couple of times. And obviously we missed a bunch of free throws."
The killer stretch came with the Phoenix leading 52-51. With a chance to give W&M the lead,
Ben Wight missed a pair of free throws. The Tribe got a second chance as the rebound went out bounds off Elon with 2:10 remaining.
Brandon Carroll then missed an open 3-pointer from the right wing.
Connor Kochera got the offensive rebound but turned it over.
Elon's Hunter McIntosh, who had been quiet since hitting a 3-pointer on the game's first possession, knocked down a baseline jumper to make it 54-51 with 1:36 left. Kochera was called for a charge, and McIntosh hit a 3-pointer to double the Phoenix's lead with 51 seconds to go.
Until McIntosh's spurt, Elon had missed four consecutive shots and gone scoreless for just over four minutes.
The loss concluded a stretch of four road games in eight days for the Tribe. The CAA didn't originally scheduled it that way — COVID made that a necessity. But going to Delaware and Pennsylvania and then South Carolina and North Carolina has to be a grind.
Fisher acknowledged that, but only to a point.
"It can't be a crutch that we use," he said. "It can't be an excuse that we had these road games and traveled like this. It's a factor in there somewhere, but it's a matter of tuning that out and getting over that hurdle."
Wight led the Tribe with 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting and six rebounds. Kochera had 12 points, six rebounds and two steals. Carroll finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds — his second double-double in three games — and three steals.
Neither team shot well — W&M 39% and 4-of-22 from the arc; Elon 40% and 9-of-34. The Tribe didn't help itself at the free throw line (8-of-13), but neither did the Phoenix (6-of-9).
The timing of W&M's misses was the issue. On consecutive possessions near the two-minute mark with a chance to tie, the Tribe missed three of four free throws.
It was the second consecutive game in which free throw shooting proved costly. Two nights earlier at Charleston, W&M was 2-of-4 — 2-of-5, really, since one of the misses was a front end of a one-and-one — in the final 1:26 of a 74-73 loss.
"On the offensive end, teams that play with discipline take care of the ball and take good shots and make their free throws," Fischer said. "I think the guys understand the importance of it. It's a matter of stepping up and knocking them down with confidence."
William & Mary's next chance to do that will come Saturday afternoon at home against this same Elon team.
"The staff will watch film on the way home and figure out what the best plan is," Fischer said. "I know our guys will be excited to play them again on Saturday."
