After a week with two strong wins against some of the Big South’s best, the LU men’s basketball team faltered last week with two losses in Farmville; one a 20-point defeat to Gardner-Webb and the other a one-point heartbreak against UNC-Asheville.
On Wednesday, the Lancers (7-16, 2-6 Big South) welcomed GWU to Willett Hall for the first time in the Big South era. Longwood fell behind early with the Bulldogs shooting 5-for-5 from three in the first eight minutes and trailed 27-11.
The Lancers eventually started getting things together and knocked down a string of baskets to cut the lead to 44-30 at halftime.
“I did a poor job tonight of having our team ready to play. I think that was obvious,” Head Coach Jayson Gee said. “I want to give them [Gardner-Webb] a lot of credit. They came focused, they were ready to play. To their credit, they shot the lights out … I’m disappointed in our defense. We had made some strides and that’s how we won two straight games. I thought we really took a step back defensively.”
The second half, like the first, was all Gardner-Webb as the Bulldogs out-rebounded Longwood 14-10 in that period to win 82-62.
Senior Tristan Carey, who had a game-high 26 points, said, “We’ve got to know our responsibilities and get back on defense in transition … Everybody has a specific thing to do in transition defense and everyone needs to take that responsibility.”
“Our defensive scheme was not where it needed to be,” Gee said. “At the same time, they’re pretty good. I spent the last two days trying to convince our team how good [we are] … We’re a fragile team and the minute you put a hole in us, I think it just snowballs.”
The story was somewhat different against UNC Asheville as the defense stepped up to force bad shots and shot clock violations. UNCA led 33-29 at halftime but it was Carey who stole the show in the second half, knocking down six straight threes, including one while getting fouled. He scored 15 points of his own in the time it took Asheville to score four, and the senior wing scored 25 points in the second half alone.
A Karl Ziegler layup with 1:03 left in the game gave Longwood the lead for what proved to be the final time.
Asheville’s Sam Hughes was fouled with 18 seconds left and earned a trip to the line, where he sank both free throws. Out of timeouts, Longwood drove down the floor for one chance to win the game.
Lucas Woodhouse got Carey the ball with two seconds left, and his three from in front of the Lancer bench bounced off the back of the iron and UNCA came away with the 67-66 win.
“I’m really proud of our guys,” Gee said. “We met as a team and spent an hour and a half in the locker room [on Wednesday] really just redefining ourselves and coming to grips with who we are and what we need to do because we were all disappointed in that effort, I know Tristan was saying he couldn’t sleep … I wanted to commend my team for following our lead of getting them refocused.”
Andrew Rowsey was 8-for-12 from three for the Bulldogs and had 32 total points. Carey had a game-high 33 points for LU and also picked up 8 rebounds to go along with his scoring performance; he was 7-for-13 from behind the arc.
Up next on the schedule this week for Longwood is Presbyterian tonight at 7 p.m. in South Carolina in a battle between the North and South Division’s last place teams.
On Saturday, Longwood visits Coastal Carolina for a 2 p.m. start.
