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High Point Drops Heartbreaker to Elon

The Phoenix are 2-0 on the season while the loss drops the Panthers to 0-2.

Elon, N.C.-- The High Point University men's basketball team dropped a close one to Elon 76-75 on the road on Saturday (Nov 28.) evening. 

Tonight's game mirrored the overtime contest between the two teams a year ago as Elon took the lead with three seconds to go and won dramatically.

 John-Michael Wright led the Panthers in scoring with 20 points on the night. Emmanuel Izunabor stepped up in a big way for HPU dropping a career-high 16 points. 

"Once again, we just could not seem to hold the lead there, even though I thought we did some good things during the entire game," Coach Tubby Smith said. "On the road against a pretty talented team in Elon, I thought for the most part we played good defense. 

Second chance points have been killing us, against Davidson it was something like 19-5 today it was 17-5 with none more important than that last offensive rebound that they got and scored off of. Then we ran a poor last-second play at the end, it just was not executed the right way but it's early yet. We had great effort out of Emmanuel, Manny played great. We had a good effort out of John-Michael. I thought we had the game under control for a while, they made some big shots, big threes to get themselves back in the game, we did a poor job of defending the three in the latter part of the game and giving up that rebound at the end really hurt."

High Point used an 8-0 run early in the first half to create space between themselves and the Phoenix. Izunabor played a big role in the run opening the action with an emphatic dunk to shift the momentum in favor of the Panthers. The slam dislodged part of the net out of the rim and caused a minor delay for repair. Izunabor rattled off eight points over about six minutes in the first half. Izunabor recorded a career-high in points with 16, a career-best for free throws made with eight, and played the most minutes of his career thus far with 26:37 logged for the Purple and White.

HPU led 21-18 with 8:08 left and went on a 13-7 run to extend the High Point the lead to 34-25. During the run Bryson Childress recorded his first collegiate points on a three-pointer, Caden Sanchez immediately complimented that with a three of his own for a quick six points. The Phoenix hung around in the latter parts of the first half and stormed back to bring the Panther lead to the three. High Point led 37-34 at the break. 

For the first five minutes of the second half, HPU and Elon exchanged the lead back and forth, with 15 to go the Panthers made their move. Wright got hot in the second half for the second game in a row and powered a 12-2 run for HPU. The sophomore scored ten of twelve points in the run, draining two threes as well. 

The Phoenix answered with a 15-4 run of their own to bring the score even at 58 with seven minutes remaining. It became clear that the two sides were picking up where they left off from a year ago and a classic finish could be in store. An Izunabor dunk and four made free throws over the final ten minutes demonstrated again the massive role he played in the game.

In the final minutes of the game, the Panthers continued to earn trips to the free-throw line with the Phoenix in the bonus. Trailing by one with 2:24 to play Wright was fouled and made both free throws, after a stop, Izunabor was fouled and went to the line made both free throws, and put HPU up three. The Phoenix came down and hit a three to tie the game at 73. With 39 seconds left Wright found Lydell Elmore for a monster slam to put HPU up 75-73.

(Lydell's dunk) "It was huge because we were tied at the time and Lydell, that's what he does", Coach Smith said. "He is a very athletic guy, our big men played great today."  

Elon came down and split free throws to find themselves down one 75-74. After a missed High Point free throw on a one-one Hunter McIntosh came down and hit both free throws to go up 76-75. Denny Slay II's half-court heave did with three seconds left did not go and Elon won 76-75.

Up Next: The Panthers return home to the Millis Center to host the Ospreys of North Florida on Saturday, December at 2:00 PM.

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