Well the first regular season game is in the books. It was closer than many of us wanted it to be, but it never really felt in doubt. Even when Elon took the lead late in the second half, the feeling was “OK, it’s time to tighten up and win” as opposed to “oh boy we are in trouble.”
Sure enough RJ Davis decided to tighten it up and the rest of the game wasn’t in doubt.
Trying to make sweeping generalizations about one basketball game in early November is always sketchy. We definitely can’t make any about how the team will do the rest of the year, but we absolutely learned some things about the players and how the team will play. Let’s dig into that.
Elliot Cadeau appears to have made the freshman to sophomore jump
Raise your hand if you thought Cadeau and Davis would have the same number of made threes, only Davis would have needed seven more attempts to get tho that number.
Put it down, you’re lying.
Cadeau finished the night with 17 points, shot 3-4 from three, and had eight assists to only three turnovers. More importantly those three-pointers were made with an ease and quickness that was lacking last year. The offense was worlds better when he was on the floor, and some of the eight assists he collected were absolute gems that few could make. He’s intent on throwing lobs this season, it seems, and as the year goes on it’s likely more of them will connect than did on Monday night.
Cadeau is a huge key for this team. Their prospects for the season were contingent on him making a jump in the offseason, and in game one at least it looks like he made it.
Hubert Davis wasn’t kidding about playing with speed
No one thought Davis was going to lie to us, mind you, but it’s still something to actually see it in practice. Every single chance Carolina got to run, they ran. They put up 51 points in the first half and for a while Elon was trying to play the speed game with them, which Carolina was happy to play. They ran after made shots, they ran after steals, they ran after rebounds, and they did everything they could to push pace.
Elon caught up to this, switched to a zone and threw some occasional full court press at Carolina to slow them up. There were times when the offense seemed struggle cause of it. We’ll get to that in a second, but it’s clear that Davis understands that such a hectic pace is going to result in the occasional mistake. Honestly, the most upset he got was at the end of the game when there was a lack of awareness over time and score and they still tried to lob it up. The rest of it he seemed fine with the team learning.
It’ll be interesting to see how this translates against teams that don’t have the same size as Elon does. It’ll also be interesting to see how Kansas decides to try to handle this pace on Friday.
Early season basketball is going to be rough
Carolina at one point was 7-17 on layups. Just layups, and those 10 misses were 20 points that kept Elon in this game. There was a real drop in the flow of the offense when either Cadeau or Davis were off the floor—and that’s to be expected. The Tar Heels are going to struggle to some extent through this early part of the season without Armando Bacot in the middle and integrating all the new pieces into the mix.
That’s going to lead to multiple stretches like we saw last night. When the trio of Davis, Cadeau, and Trimble were in, though, things were pretty smooth. Ultimately for this team to survive in March we’re going to have to put up with some of these stretches so that we know who can be counted on as the postseason begins.
That said Hubert Davis is going to be aware of the significance of a game in Phog Allen Fieldhouse, so it’s probably fair to expect a bit of a tighter rotation. Especially since the team doesn’t play again for a week once that game is complete. Still, enjoy the ride because—it’s not going to be boring.
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