Myrtle Beach, South Carolina – The No. 9 Longwood Lancers (9-22, 5-13) take on the No. 8 Presbyterian Blue Hose in the VisitMyrtleBeach.com Big South Conference Tournament on Wednesday, March 4 at noon EST.
During the regular season the Lancers and Blue Hose split their series 1-1 as both teams won and lost, 71-67.
“I think the first game at our place they really played well and we found out why (Desean) Murray was selected the best freshman in the conference, he had an outstanding game and really scored at the basket well,” said Head Coach Jayson Gee. “At our place we really got after Murray and made things more difficult for him. I think the difference in the game was that he only had nine points in that game, and we were able to come away with our victory.”
The Lancers won their way into this matchup after beating the now No. 10 seed Campbell University; going into the game the seedings were flipped.
“Our backs were against the wall for a number of reasons. We wanted to finish as high as we could in the standings, despite the fact that we created expectations the bottom line is this league picked us to finish last and we did not; we finished in ninth place,” said Gee.
The team received a big performance from Big South All-Conference Second-Team senior guard Quincy Taylor. Taylor led the team in scoring with 25 points on 6-for-11 shooting, 4-for-7 from beyond the arc, and 9-for-10 from the free throw line.
“He’s really done it all year long. He had all ten siblings in attendance… and I thought that gave him added motivation to play very well,” said Gee. “I think that’s what the best players do for their team, and he was tremendous Saturday and we’re going to need him to be terrific on Wednesday.”
In the Lancers past three games they’ve been having trouble with allowing their opponents to go on runs in the second half. In their last three games of the season Longwood has been outscored 142-96 in the second half of play; while shooting 45.3 percent from the field and allowing their opponents to shoot 60 percent from the field.
Taylor has scored 45.7 percent of the Lancers points in their last three games of the season. According to Gee, junior guard/forward Shaquille Johnson and junior guard Leron Fisher have to step up with Taylor for the Lancers to be successful on Wednesday.
Longwood will have to stop Big South Freshman of the Year forward Desean Murray and Big South All-Conference Honorable Mention senior guard Jordan Downing. Murray and Downing combined for 105 points and 31 rebounds in the series against the Lancers; the rest of the team scored 67 and pulled down 49 rebounds.
“With Downing we’re just going to try and do our best, he’s probably the best shot maker in the conference with defense on him; he proved that in our game there. We’re going to try and defend him by committee and give a lot of people a multitude of chances to defend him,” said Gee.
Longwood junior forward/center Lotanna Nwogbo was expected to return, but was officially ruled out of the tournament on Saturday.
“I’m expecting our team to come out with great energy, compete and set the tone early in the game,” said Gee. “The one thing you can never guarantee is whether shots go in, so what we try to do is penetrate the ball to get the ball closer to the basket and obviously try to play defense.”
The winner of this game will go on to play No. 1 Charleston Southern University on Friday, March 6 at noon EST. Both Longwood and Presbyterian went 0-2 against Charleston Southern during the regular season.
