Longwood will take their 3-18 over- all record into the Millis Center to- night as they take on the High Point Panthers (9-10, 4-3 Big South). The Lancers have lost 11 in a row dating back to Dec. 17, and 10th-year head coach Mike Gillian remains confident even with the team remaining win- less in the past month-plus.
“A lot of teams in the Big South are perimeter-oriented teams,” he said on Tuesday. “For example, [first-ranked] Charleston Southern has four very good guards averaging double figures. But High Point is an interior- oriented team with [big men] John Brown and Allan Chaney. Those guys play in and around the basket and we have to do a good job keeping those guys under wraps.”
Brown has started all 19 games for HPU, averaging a team-high 17.5 points, which is good enough for third in the conference, and 6.7 re- bounds. Chaney has 13.9 points and leads the team with 7.4 rebounds for the Panthers, who are currently tied for third in the North Division with VMI and Radford.
“If they don’t produce big numbers for them, it’s hard for [the team] to score points,” said Gillian. “They scored 58 points against Asheville the other day and those two combined for 12 points, so we have to do a good job of containing those guys and then continue to understand that when you’re defending guys on the perimeter they’re going to try and drive us to the basket. We’ve got to close out and guard those guys well and keep them out of the lane. We need to do a better job of shutting down those drives to the basket and not giving up those driving layups during the course of the game as the game’s moving along.
“If we can do those things, we’re okay against them defensively. We’ve been doing a better job of taking care of the ball [lately] and that’s going to be key for us to get the shots we expect to.
Longwood is ranked last in the country for scoring defense, aver- aging 81.9 points given up over 21 games. Freshman guard Michael Kes- sens leads the conference in rebounds with 9.2 a game.
