The rough season for the LU men’s basketball team continued last week with two difficult losses in front of loud Willett Hall crowds.
Wednesday’s game was against in-state rival Radford, a team that started off the conference slate strong. The Lancers (8-22, 3-12 Big South) took a 39-38 lead into the locker room at halftime, their first home halftime lead since the Campbell game on Jan. 11.
This was in no small part due to Tristan Carey’s nine points and eight rebounds in the half. In the second half, Longwood got out to a 12-6 run to start off the period, but Radford took the lead with 9:20 to play.
Back-to-back threes by Carey at 6:11 and Lucas Woodhouse at 5:43 gave Longwood a one-point lead and sent Willett into a frenzy. It remained a back-and-forth affair for most of the remainder of the game, which featured a highlight reel dunk by Carey over Radford’s Brandon Holcomb.
Carey took off from just in front of the low block as Holcomb tried to take a charge, but Carey’s acrobatic abilities carried him above the rim and he slammed it down with authority – and with one hand – as Holcomb fell to the hardwood.
A picture of the dunk has already gone viral and the play made No. 4 on SportsCenter’s “Top 10 Plays” segment from late Wednesday through Thursday.
The dunk and Carey’s ensuing free throw brought Longwood to within one, but that was as close as they would get.
The Highlanders missed only two free throws down the stretch and came away with the 86-85 win.
“We practice harder than we play in games,” Carey said. “That’s how it’s supposed to be but we need to carry over how we practice into games, being physical, communication, everything.”
Head Coach Jayson Gee said, “We’ve got to keep working hard, that’s the number one thing. This team has shown with their leadership that when we play hard and compete and play defense, [we win].”
Against High Point, things were even worse as Longwood fell to the Panthers 85-59. Devante Wallace had a game-high 20 points for HPU, who outscored the Lancers 49-28 in the first half.
They got out to a 10-3 lead to start the game and after a short LU run, they took control of the game and never looked back.
Wallace had 14 of his points in the first, along with 12 from Lorenzo Cugini and eight assists from Jorge Perez-Laham.
The second half was better for the Lancers, as they were only outscored by five, but the Panthers’ 27 bench points and 21 off turnovers were too much for Longwood to overcome.
“I think a coach studies trends,” Gee said. “For whatever reason, every couple games or so, we have a performance like this. I don’t know what it is, but every couple games we [play like this] … This season, I knew we were going to lose games. That’s not my forte right now, but what you can’t do is lose the competitive battle. You can’t lose the desire to compete and for whatever reason, there’s something that comes over this basketball team. I don’t know if it’s history, the past, the consistent lack of success, I don’t know what it is. But it’s something, and it’s real, and it’s obvious to everybody including the players in the locker room.”
Last night against Liberty in Lynchburg, the Lancers got out to a hot start, leading by as many as five in the first half and as late as 9:17 left before Liberty used a few strings of baskets to pull away with a 42-33 halftime lead and eventually get a 90-76 win.
Woodhouse had a team-high 24 points ahead of Carey’s 20. “I thought we battled,” Gee said. “The kids were ready to play and I was pleased with their effort … I think that effort gives us a shot. We just kept fighting.”
The team has just one regular season game left – Saturday afternoon at 4:30 against VMI in Farmville.
After that Senior Day game, the Lancers travel to Myrtle Beach to see if they can shock some people in the Big South Tournament at Coastal Carolina University.
With the loss, the team clinched the No. 6 seed in the North Division for next week’s conference tournament. They will play the South Division’s No. 3 seed, who at press time was Gardner-Webb.
