Looking at tonight’s schedule, there is one game that clearly stands out as the Small Conference Game of the Day. The Akron Zips are traveling on the road to take on the Ohio University Bobcats in a key battle at the top of the MAC East Division standings. However, the SCGD doesn’t like to go with the obvious choice, and that is why we are instead going to be heading to the Southern Conference, where the two division leaders will be meeting in their only regular season contest against each other, Davidson at Elon, 7:00 PM Eastern.
Davidson enters tonight’s game at 21-7 overall and 15-1 in the SoCon. Their only league loss was to Georgia Southern back on January 14. In fact, that was the last game that Davidson lost this season. They enter on a 12 game winning streak and fresh off an overtime BracketBuster victory over Big Sky leader Montana. Elon, on the other hand, sits at 19-9 overall and 12-4 in conference. They have won 11 of their last 13 games, though fell this past weekend on the road to Chattanooga.
Davidson features the nation’s top free throw shooter in Nik Cochran, who is converting over 95% from the charity stripe. He also ranks 18th in the country in 3-point percentage at 47.7. The Wildcats also have last year’s SoCon co-players of the year in Jake Cohen and De’Mon Brooks. Cohen is averaging 15.0 points per game while Brooks is at 13.3. Elon, on the other hand, is led by Lucas Troutman’s 14.9 per game and Jack Isenbarger’s 13.9. Ryley Beaumont is the team’s top rebounder at 6.9 per game, while scoring 11.7 points per game. While Davidson is on their way to the top seed in the SoCon tournament, this game may prove to be a preview of the conference tournament championship game.