On Stephen’s decision last spring

Matt: “I really thought he would stay. The fact that he left and he was drafted seventh ... the decision he made is going to be good for him.”

Davidson football at Elon

Burlington:

Before Matheny coaches a game for the Phoenix, he’ll watch his alma mater play Elon in Saturday night’s football opener at Rhodes Stadium. That’s quite a balancing act: Former Davidson football player, current Elon basketball coach.

“I haven’t really thought what way my heart will pull,” Matheny said a few days ago, though fully pointing out that he’s all Elon, all the time these days.

His new role

Burlington:

It was role reversal for new Elon University men’s basketball coach Matt Matheny last week.

That’s because it wasn’t long ago that he was one of the pupils in the annual Villa 7 Consortium, which is a program set up to benefit assistant basketball coaches on the college level.

With the sixth installment of the program last week in Las Vegas, Matheny was tabbed as one of the speakers. The program is designed to help selected assistant coaches be prepared for head coaching jobs.