GREENSBORO -- North Carolina A&T's men's basketball team had done more than weather the storm from Elon.
The Aggies got right back into the mix during Thursday night's Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) game at Corbett Sports Center. So that was the encouraging part. It also led to the discouraging aspect of the 75-67 loss.
"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."
The Aggies cut a 16-point deficit to three with 6:15 remaining in the game. They couldn't quite pull even.
"I can't fault the fight, can't fault the effort," Ross said. "Being down 16 with 14 minutes to play, I thought we did a great job of getting back into the game. We cut it to three, had the ball, and turned it over."
A&T (4-11, 0-2 CAA) had early highlights from Landon Glasper's long-range shooting. He finished with 22 points, drilling six 3-point baskets. Jahnathan Lamothe racked up 16 points, and Nikolaos Chitikoudis cranked out his fourth career double-double with 12 points and 15 rebounds before fouling out with 34.2 seconds left. Ryan Forrest added 11 points.
The Aggies were 11-for-26 from beyond the arc. A torrid early pace was something they couldn't maintain from a shooting standpoint.
"You understand it's going to even itself out," Ross said.
The Aggies drained four threes in the first 4 ½ minutes to take a 16-9 lead. Glasper posted 14 points in the first 8½ minutes, but the lead was only 24-18. Glasper hit another three less than two minutes later. Eight 3-pointers and three 2-point baskets marked the production in the Aggies' 30-27 lead. A&T didn't attempt a first-half free throw.
After Elon (10-4, 1-0) used an 18-4 run to close the first half with a 45-34 lead. The deficit grew in the second half, but the Aggies came to life. Mainly stemming from some amped-up defense, they closed within 60-53 on Chitikoudis' putback. A chance to tighten the gap went awry with two missed free throws before Nick Dorn's three free throws for Elon.
But Glasper's two free throws at 7:25 made it 65-59. Jalal McKie hit the front end of a 1-and-1 as the Aggies got closer. Forrest's two made foul shots moved the Aggies to within three, 65-62. After the Aggies had three straight empty possessions, Elon's TJ Simpkins converted a three-point play.
"Then we gambled for a steal at the opposite end on the next possession, and they go in for an and-one," Ross said. "It's just little things like that that you can't have in a conference game, period. But you can't have when you're trying to fight your way back like we were trying to do."
A&T didn't score again until the 1:59 mark.
"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."
There was a list of positive developments for the Aggies. Some of those came by holding Elon to 30 second-half points. Chitikoudis was a warrior again, battling for much of the night against 7-foot-4 Elon center Matthew Van Komen. Chitikoudis, listed at 6-9, shot 6-for-13, but he was 5-for-6 in the second half.
"I thought we did a good job on (Sam) Sherry, who had to take 13 shots to get 10 points," Ross said. "(Nick) Dorn had to take 13 shots to get 13 points. Simpkins killed us from the free-throw line, but he was 4-for-14, 1-for-5 from three. So defensively, we were good. We carried out the assignments that we wanted to. Just turned that ball over at some key points."
There's a rematch on Feb. 13 at Elon. Next, the Aggies face Drexel at 2 p.m. Saturday at Corbett Sports Center.
