On Jan. 10, Longwood junior forward/center Lotanna Nwogbo left the team’s game against Charleston Southern in the first half after a “freak accident” caused an injury to his thumb.
“I think Lotanna is (Nwogbo) one of three pieces on our team that are really irreplaceable, and it has to be done collectively,” said Head Coach Jayson Gee. “Lotanna was the root of our team, he was the thing that held us together, and he was the foundation. Now we’ve gotta have three people really step-up; (Damarion) Geter, Vic (Dorsey), and Shaq (Johnson), to really become that new anchor for our team.”
According to Assistant VP for Athletics Communications Chris Cook, medical testing later revealed that Nwogbo dislocated the carpometacarpal joint in his right hand. On Friday, Jan. 16 Nwogbo underwent surgery to, “repair the joint capsule and a couple other things to hold the bone in place.”
“If I kept playing through it, the doctor wouldn’t be able to see me for another two weeks after this Friday. So, it was best just to be aggressive with it,” said Nwogbo. “I was just really looking forward to the long-run and the Big South Tournament, and I didn’t want to end my season too early.”
The accident occurred after Nwogbo saved the ball from going out of play, then as he was coming back into the game he tripped on a camera cord. As he went to catch himself, Charleston Southern senior guard Arlon Harper went up for a lay-up and as he came down, accidentally landed on Nwogbo’s hand.
Without Nwogbo, the rebounding differential in Longwood’s past three games has been exponentially different compared to earlier this season.
“Quite honestly our first test did not come out well in that area, particularly in the area of rebounding; which is a major deficiency in our team right now without him,” said Gee after the teams worst rebounding differential all season (-16 against Presbyterian College). “We’ve gotta become a gang rebounding team if we want any chance at being competitive in this league.”
The team is now looking at the rest of their season, and what they plan to do in order to replace Nwogbo’s absence on the court. According to Gee, the game plan is to apply pressure to teams more frequently.
“We now have some time to make that adjustment without him. In key situations we’re gonna trap more to try to take advantage of our speed and quickness, instead of having all that size and strength at the basket.”
For the Lancer’s to succeed, Gee believes freshman forward Victor Dorsey and sophomore forward Damarion Geter have to step-up and be aggressive on both ends of the floor. He believes Dorsey just needs a little more time to develop his game. “I think one of the things that hurts coaches is when you’ve gotta put people in positions that they aren’t ready for and you need them to be more successful. I’ve gotta be careful not to be too critical because he’s really doing the best he can.”
Geter’s biggest problem according to Gee, is that at the beginning of the season Gee told him not to worry about offense, and to just play. “I blame myself…then, player’s started dropping and injuries starting happening, now all of a sudden we’re asking him to do something that we probably should’ve asked him to do at the beginning of the year.”
With the Lancers losing Nwogbo, Gee enforces a “1000 piece puzzle” mentality with the players. This mentality involves being able to see the “outside” of the puzzle and enforcing what the big picture looks like.
“The belief in the vision and the picture are still there, it’s just that it’s in a bunch of pieces and we gotta figure out how to put it all together,” said Gee.
As for Nwogbo, he believes his role doesn’t change, “I’m still a team captain, I still have decisions on the team, and I just have to keep being a leader off the court at this point; just verbally continue to be a leader.”
The Lancers are expecting Nwogbo to be ready to play at the Big South Tournament, which begins March 3 in Conway, South Carolina (hosted by Coastal Carolina University).
