Elon University sophomore guard Austin Hamilton didn't plan on taking a 40-footer to win.

Unfortunately for the Phoenix, the ball didn't plan on going in.

The College of Charleston Cougars played enough defense in the waning minutes of the second half against Elon, staving off a hurried Phoenix comeback and winning their first conference game of the season 56-54 Saturday night in Alumni Gym.

"How about that for a Dec. 1 conference game? Aside from the fact that it’s low-scoring, I guess that can happen in the postseason, but that was a battle," said Elon head coach Matt Matheny. "I love the way our kids fought to hang in there."

The Cougars had a 52-43 lead with 6:34 after College of Charleston junior forward Willis Hall knocked down a jumper. Elon went on a 9-0 run, tying the game with 2:50 left on a layup off an offensive rebound by Phoenix freshman guard Tanner Samson.

Twenty-five seconds later, Samson knocked the ball out of the hands of Cougars junior forward Anthony Thomas' hands. Hamilton snagged the ball but stepped out of bounds. College of Charleston sophomore forward Adjehi Baru slammed home an emphatic dunk with 1:30 left to put the Cougars up 54-52, and for good.

Elon had an opportunity to tie or win the game with five seconds left, but Samson slipped while trying to pass the ball in-bounds. Junior forward Lucas Troutman ended up with the ball at the top of the key then handed it to Hamilton, who tried to get a good look before heaving a shot at the buzzer that hit the backboard and fell to the floor.

"Lucas had it up top and I tried to help him, come towards him and let one up and it just didn’t go our way tonight," Hamilton said. "We’ll be alright. Just try to get back to the drawing board tomorrow."

On that final play, Matheny said the Phoenix was hoping find junior guard Jack Isenbarger for an open shot, but the pass didn't ever go that way.

Hall led all scorers with 19 points and all rebounders with 12 boards. Cougars senior guard Andrew Lawrence chipped in 11 points and four assists.

Elon junior forward Ryley Beaumont led the Phoenix with 14 points and seven rebounds, while Troutman added 12 points.

The Phoenix struggled from the field in the first half, shooting just 26.7 percent overall and a paltry 21.4 percent overall, and that after a pretty good start. Elon took a 14-6 lead just 6:30 into the first half, but Charleston rebounded by hitting 10 of their next 20 shots to take a 29-24 lead into halftime.

Elon ran into foul trouble in that stretch, as Isenbarger (nine points on 3-of-7 shooting), Beaumont and junior guard Sebastian Koch (three points in just 17 minutes) each got two fouls in that stretch.

"We had a couple guys get in foul trouble and that slowed us down a little bit," Troutman said. "Having our main guys in foul trouble, those are three guys. As deep as our bench is, having three of them out is still really hard. That’s three of our main guys, that’s guys we need out there on the court most of the time. Getting in foul trouble is what set us back."

During that stretch, the Phoenix was playing mainly bench players and couldn't get anything consistent going offensively, hitting just one field goal in the last 6:35 of the half.

"We were a little stagnant on offense," Hamilton said. "We weren’t cutting hard. We were just kind of sloppy."

The sloppiness played a little bit of a factor in the second half until Isenbarger hit a big three-pointer out of a timeout with 6:08 left in the half to spark the run.

One of the things Matheny was especially pleased with was the way his team fought throughout the game.

"We came back and they controlled the second half but our kids never gave up," he said. "I’m encouraged with the way we fought, I’m encouraged with the way we got back in it and we just didn’t execute well enough down the stretch to get good looks, even up until the last five seconds."

The Phoenix moves to 5-3 overall, 1-1 in the Southern Conference this season in the team's final conference game until Jan. 12 against Appalachian State University in perhaps the Phoenix's final conference game against the Cougars (College of Charleston announced Friday they were moving to the Colonial Athletic Association next July).

"Knowing the things we did today that we could have changed and fixed and pulled out this game, yeah, it makes it a little harder to swallow," Troutman said about losing a key conference game. "Now it’s gone, and the next thing we’ve got to do is move on."

Moving on involves facing Dartmouth College on Tuesday, a rematch of one of Elon's rougher games last year as the Big Green 62-54 win in New Hampshire last Dec. 17.

"Dartmouth beat us," Matheny said of last year's game. "They just beat us up there. It’s vivid in our coaches’ minds and it’s vivid in our players’ minds, they beat us."

Game Notes

  • Matheny, regarding College of Charleston's conference move: "I’ve been in the league a long time. The league is more important than any single member, and I’m a Southern Conference guy. I hope and expect this league to continue to have great basketball and great football and great college athletics as a whole, regardless of who leaves or comes in."
  • The Phoenix forced Lawrence, a preseason all-SoCon first team pick and a member of the 2012 Great Britain Olympic team, into eight turnovers on the night. "He is a heck of a guard," Troutman said. "He’s one of the best guards in our league, and you force eight turnovers from him, that’s pretty good, especially with someone like him."
  • Elon scored 25 points off 19 Cougars turnovers, while College of Charleston had 28 points in the paint.
  • Baru scored nine points and grabbed eight rebounds and was a dominant force down-low all night, dunking twice in the second half.