A shooting hand that cooled off combined with costly turnovers at the worst possible time for North Carolina A&T, leading to a 71-67 loss to Elon.

“Offensively, I felt we played well enough to win,” A&T coach Monté Ross said. “We just turned the ball over at the most inopportune times. You look, and a person would say, ‘You just had seven turnovers.’ We just had (about) four of them in the last five, six minutes of the game. Just a killer when you’re fighting back like that.”

Two free throws by Ryan Forrest got A&T to 65-62 with 6:14 left to play. Its next basket was a Jahnathan Lamothe layup at 1:59. A 3-pointer by Landon Glasper with 11 seconds remaininng capped a promising start that disintegrated into disapopointment on Thursday night at Corbett Sports Center.

In that six-minute span, the Aggies (4-11, 0-2 CAA) committed four turnovers, three of them withiout getting off a shot. They also missed six shots, further damaging the rally.

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“They were the type of turnovers we usually don’t have,” Ross said. “We’re usually pretty sure-handed. Especially at the end of games, we do a good job of making sure we get a shot. That’s something that I’ll look at.”

The Phoenix (10-4, 1-0 CAA) led by as much as 16 in the second half before A&T began its comeback. Lamothe punctuated the rally with a 3-pointer with 10:58 left. The subsequent 14-5 run ending with Forrest’s two free throws gpt the Aggies within striking distance. But the possessions that came up empty, along with a three-point play by Elon’s TJ Simpkins, essentially spelled the end for A&T.

“It’s just little things like that that you can’t have in a conference game, period,” Ross said. “But you can’t have when you’re trying to fight your way back like we were trying to do.”

Glasper finished with 22 points, including six 3-point baskets. He’s hit 11 3-point shots in his last two games. Lamothe had 16 points, and Nikolaos Chitikoudis produced his fourth career double-double with 12 points and 15 rebounds before fouling out with 34.2 seconds left. Ryan Forrest added 11 points.

A&T’s latest loss came in the third game of a four-game home stand. The stand concludes on Saturday when the Aggies host Drexel.

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