Longwood’s Men’s Basketball has seen a season full of twists and turns. Through a non-conference schedule that was widely considered to be one of the weakest in all of Division I, the Lancers were able to show their depth and excel in a part of the season that gets frequently overlooked. The non-conference schedule was a success, but that didn’t equate to a good start in Big South play. Over time, Longwood found their footing in a season that.
Due to the grand opening of the brand new Joan Perry Brock Center and its inaugural campaign in NCAA Basketball, Longwood organized the Brock Challenge and invited the likes of Delaware State, Lamar, and Bethune-Cookman to participate. This caused a shake-up in the typical non-conference schedule with three games played in consecutive days.
The Lancers would go on to beat all three of the other schools in the competition, with the most emphatic victory being a 69-48 win over Bethune-Cookman. Junior shooting guard John-John Massie was named player of the game after grabbing 18 points and seven rebounds. However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Longwood throughout this game. Walyn Napper, the Lancers’ senior point guard, stated that the three games in a row “reminded us of AAU…in AAU you [could] have three games one day, and three the next day…this is going to prepare us for the conference tournament, where you have three or four games to win.”
Two more comfortable wins would follow after B-CU. Longwood would take down Newport News Apprentice and Morgan State, before once again scraping past Delaware State. Division III Gallaudet would be the next team to fall to Longwood, followed by Wisconsin-Milwaukee. It was at this point that the Conference and even the rest of the country were put on notice. Longwood had the most wins in all of Division I basketball after that win.
A former Big South program in VMI rolled into Farmville on December 17th. While the Lancers won 69-48. With that victory, Longwood’s Head Coach Griff Aldrich had officially won 100 games with the Longwood men’s basketball program.
Graduate student forward Michael Christmas said, “we don’t start as good as we should a lot of times…[but] as you can see in the second half we stretched that lead out.” On the back of a 12-game winning streak, losses against NC Central and Dayton would signal the end of non-conference play.
With a 12-3 record going into the Big South season, the Lancers were picked to be among the best in the conference. However, they started their campaign with a loss on the road to Winthrop on January 3rd. In the first five conference games, Longwood’s only had one win, which was a 77-56 home triumph against Charleston Southern.
In a tough battle against Presbyterian College on January 20, Longwood’s Center Szymon Zapala led the way with 17 points resulting in a victory for Longwood. Regarding the improvement from the win, in comparisonto the three prior losses, Zapala said, “Recently we put more focus on the execution part, and Ithink that showed today. Our flow and offensive rhythm was better.”
In the blink of an eye, the 2-4 conference record became 2-8 after a narrow loss to USC Upstate on February 14. Emanuel Richards, a freshman who had 6 points, was one of the hardest working players in the game. “We just got to execute in late-game situations like that. We missed a lot of free throws in the game that had us in this position in the first place,” Richards said.
After a historically successful non-conference performance, everything built in that stretch seemed to come crashing down. The Lancers were sitting in last place in the conference after their home loss to USC Upstate. Longwood needed a spark from someone in order to put some wins together.
In the following game against Winthrop, that special player was the aforementioned Massie. He had 31 points, shot almost perfectly from the field and made a half-court buzzer-beating shot to finish out the first half. This powered the Lancers past the Eagles and secured them a win for the first time in 20 days.
The momentum would continue in the following game after a gritty road win against Presbyterian. The Lancers would then return home to play the high-flying UNC Asheville at the Joan Perry Brock Center. The visiting Bulldogs were favored in this game due to their impressive record, but through a banner second half from the Lancers, Longwood took the win at the score of 80-75. Aldrich said, “Our preparation is typically the same for every team, I think the difference with this group is that we are really improving as a team.” Improvement is what is needed at this stage in the season, with only three regular season games left.
With this season being the epitome of an up and down season, fans will have to wait and see whether this season will be regarded as a success or not. The Big South Conference tournament is not far away, and Longwood continues to gain momentum right when they need to.
