Several words or phrases could be used to describe the Longwood men’s basketball season to date; some of those can’t be published here. Over the university’s winter break, a stretch of nine games was expected to be, at worst, a learning experience for the young Lancers, and, at best, a surprising string of victories against high-quality opponents.
Depending on your point of view, it was neither one of those.
A 1-8 record in games in which stu- dents were away from Farmville in- cluded losses to every Division I team in that part of the schedule, such as Georgetown and Virginia Commonwealth. NAIA Southern Virginia suc- cumbed to the Lancers’ efforts in Willett Hall on Dec. 13.
The Monday after finals, the team visited No. 21 Georgetown on Dec. 10 where they fell to the Big East members 89-53. Losses on what may be the team’s final long road trip for the foreseeable future were to Canisius, Seton Hall and VCU. An eight-point loss to Fairleigh Dickinson on New Year’s Eve saw the end of their inaugural out-of-conference schedule.
A new era began on Jan. 5 as LU hosted Coastal Carolina and lost their conference opener, 80-72. Losses to Campbell, Charleston Southern and Radford set the stage for a memorable matchup against two-time de- fending conference champion UNC- Asheville.
The Lancers took a 40-39 deficit into the locker room, and the game was tied with 34 seconds left before a Jeylani Dublin foul sent Asheville’s Jeremy Atkinson to the line, and he sank one of two. Trent Meyer sank two more, and a potential game-tying three by Tristan Carey clanked off the rim at the buzzer, giving the Lancers arguably their most deflating loss of the campaign to date.
“One of the things that you have, when you have a group that’s gaining experience like we are, there’s experience of how to put yourself in a position to be successful and then there’s experience of actually work- ing through that time ... You’ve got to make the right plays in order to come out on top. The game at that point is ... going to be decided in the last three-and-a-half minutes,” 10- year head coach Mike Gillian said on Tuesday.
“It stinks [to fall short]. Nobody wants to lose the games, however, when you’re in a situation like that,
it hurts even more because you know you’ve done it well. What happens with that is, if that’s the case and it clearly was for us, that’s further evi- dence of the understanding of the situation that you’re actually in. That fuels you to get better and that drives you forward.”
“We’re going in the right direc- tion.”
Freshman guard Lucas Woodhouse recorded his first career double-dou- ble (12 points, 10 assists) against Rad- ford last Wednesday. Woodhouse has been earning more minutes running the point as of late, with the Asheville game being his first starting appear- ance since the season opener against Marshall. “He’s understanding his own role better, as the other guys are,” says Gillian. “Then, and only then, can you start to understand what else is going on around you and start to control it. Then you play bet- ter. It’s a process.”
While saying that Woodhouse would start for the time being, Gil- lian also spoke on the status of the team’s other freshman guard, Nik Brown. Brown, who is averaging 9.7 points and 3.6 assists per game, is rumored to have sustained a concus- sion during the Radford game. While he would not specifically state the
nature of the injury, adding, “I’m not a doctor or a trainer.” He also said, “There are some tests that can be done to determine exactly where Nik is and what he has going on.
“Until we have that stuff com- pleted, you really don’t know that answer.”
The much-hyped game against rival Liberty took place last night, and a game that was expected to be a back-and-forth battle between two hungry teams ended up disappoint- ing as Longwood fell to the Flames 74-47. Longwood was within shout- ing distance at halftime, trailing only 33-27, but Liberty took advantage of over a dozen key Lancer turnovers and converted at the other end. One commentator even stated that Long- wood was being “destroyed” at one point.
On the postgame show on WVHL, Gillian told play-by-play man Scott Bacon, “We gave up a bunch of bas- kets ... at the rim. Basically, those guys put us away. We’ve got to be able to grind it out every possession over the course of the game, and we didn’t do that during the second half tonight.”
“It was not good.”
