The Longwood women’s basketball team still has six players from the 2012-2013 team that made it to the Big South Conference Tournament Championship game in their first official season as a member.
Guard Daeisha Brown, guard Raven Williams, guard Kyndal Skersick, guard Jaclyn Reagan, guard/forward Khalilah Ali and guard Deborah Headen were all freshmen at the time, but now have three-plus seasons of experience under their belts to use as motivation towards getting back to the title game this season.
“The thing we’ve learned being in the Big South is you have to have seniors to make it to Sunday and we haven’t had seniors the last couple of years,” said Longwood women’s basketball head coach Bill Reinson. “The year that we did, we did a very good job and went all the way to the championship game and our current seniors were freshmen at the time.”
Reinson added, “They’ve played a lot of basketball. They haven’t won a lot, but the similarities between this senior group and that senior group is very comparable. If they do what they need to do, we have enough talent on the team to get back to where we want to go.”
One of those players who has contributed since her first day on campus is redshirt junior Brown, who missed most of last season with a knee injury.
“I think people forget that we have Daeisha Brown, who didn’t play last year,” said Reinson. “Her coming back is just going to make us that much better.”
When Brown went down with an injury in the first part of the season, it gave an opportunity for players such as Williams and Skersick to seize the opportunity and lead the offense. Williams was named to the Big South Preseason All-Conference Second Team thanks to her breakout junior campaign.
“I’m looking forward to a couple of newcomers as well. I think Ebony Gilliam, a junior college transfer who’s played a lot of basketball; she’ll help us,” said Reinson. “Kemari Jones has been playing really well in practice, and then a couple of the rising sophomores.”
Reinson added, “Autumn Childress is a very talented player that didn’t get a chance to play a lot last year because of injury and Micaela Ellis really started to come on at the end of the year.”
Longwood will face another tough onslaught of nonconference games, which starts this Friday, Nov. 13 in Corvallis, Oregon against the defending Pac-12 Champion Oregon State Beavers.
“I think that’s something that our girls should see, someone who has accomplished something like that, and just be able to see what it looks like to raise that banner because that’s something we kind of aspire too,” said Reinson.
The Lancers will also be on the road Sunday, Nov. 15 at James Madison University and again on Nov. 22 against the University of Virginia before welcoming North Carolina Central on Nov. 24 for their home opener.
