In most cases, a 5-14 losing record is not viewed positively.
Even though it was a marked improvement from Longwood women’s basketball going 4-26 overall last season with 10 regular season games left, redshirt junior guard Daeisha Brown called the record what it was.
“Bad,” said Brown candidly.
Both of the team’s leading scorers, senior guard Kyndal Skersick and Brown, agreed that while the program was better than last year, they were not where they wanted to be.
“Of course, I think it’s a lot better than last year, but I also think it could be a lot better than how it’s going now,” said Brown. Last year, at 19 games in, Longwood had won just two games.
Similar to last season, the team has been plagued with injuries, at one point reducing their rotation to a healthy eight from a 16-man roster for two games, Radford and Gardner-Webb.
“We’re still not at full health, but we’re healthier than we were this time last year, and I think that makes a difference,” said Longwood women’s basketball head coach Bill Reinson. “We’ve got a lot of good players who are, you know, having some injury issues, and I think getting them back has been very, very important.”
Even with the injuries, the team has narrowed the gap between them and their opponents in a major area they struggled with in the past – rebounds.
With the help of junior college transfer forward Eboni Gilliam and freshman forward and starter Kemari Jones, the Lancers have tightened the rebounding margin to around nine versus averaging 14 last year.
Gilliam and Jones currently lead Longwood in rebounds. Gilliams, who has played every game, averages 6.4 boards per game, while Jones follows at 4.8 and missed four games due to injury.
“Last year, we used to get outrebounded by 20, 25 rebounds a game, and this year it hasn’t happened,” said Reinson. Three years ago, the 2012-13 women’s basketball team made it to the Big South tournament finals after going 2-8 in the last 10 games of regular season conference play and finished with a losing 8-10 Big South record, not counting postseason results.
Now, the record is flipped.
With the first 10 conference games passed, Longwood was 2-8 in the Big South and ranked last prior to their 26 point win against the Winthrop on Tuesday, Jan. 26.
Although, Longwood has outrebounded the 2012-13 Lancers, their scoring misses the mark. The team averaged 63 points per game, six more than the team’s current average, which includes their 100-point victory against North Carolina-Wesleyan earlier this season.
When asked if today’s team had the potential to make a postseason campaign like that in 2013, Reinson placed the responsibility on the backs of his seniors.
“I think Raven Williams, I think Kyndal Skersick, I think Deborah Headen, I think they all need to step up their game because back in that year, it was our seniors that carried us. You know, it was Chelsea Coward, Erin Neal, Mieke Elkington. They just willed themselves to win, and that’s the mentality that this group needs to have,” said Reinson.
Former Longwood guards Chelsea Coward and Erin Neal led that team by averaging over 14 points per game and being a constant presence on the court by earning over 30 minutes a game.
Brown was also a key factor in the success of 2013 as a freshman. The 5-foot-3 point guard was third on the team in scoring, second on the team in steals and assists and earned the VaSID All-State Rookie of the Year after being named to the Big South All-Freshman team.
Last season, Longwood felt her absence after an ACL tear forced her to redshirt three games into the season.
“I’d say she’s about 75, 80 percent. So she’s not the 100 percent Daeisha Brown that you know, we knew a couple years ago, but she’s slowly, but surely getting back,” said Reinson.
As a freshman, she added over 12 points per game. Still recovering, she’s till second on the team with over 8 per game. The team has seen flashes of Brown’s prowess in a few double-digit games, including a 20-point performance in their first conference game against High Point.
“The further she gets away from the surgery, the stronger she gets, so we’re just going to see better of her,” continued Reinson.
Skersick was also a freshman at the time but became more of an impact player last year in Brown’s absence. After averaging over 10 points per game and hitting 34.3 percent of her threes, Skersick has been tabbed by opponents’ defenses as one to watch. This season she averages 9.5 points per game.
“Kyndal’s been targeted a little bit this year. People understand that she’s going to do a lot of the scoring for us and have been focusing their defensive players on her, and I think that’s made it a little bit tougher for her,” said Reinson.
The question is where will the rest of the points needed to win games come from?
According to Skersick, any member of their team is capable.
“Everyone has the potential to play a part in every win,” she said. “We just need everybody to know what their role is on the floor and we just need more people to step up and help us get a win as a team.”
Their Tuesday night victory was a positive beginning as they face all Big South members for a second time.
“I think going through the second time in the conference will be even better, and hopefully we can avoid the injury bug a second time,” said Reinson.
With more healthy players, he believes the Lancers will have more energy and pressure with “more weapons.”
“They’ll see a different Longwood the second time than they did the first time.”
(From left) Freshman guard Ciarah Bennett, sophomore guard Autumn Childress, freshman forward Kemari Jones, redshirt junior guard Daeisha Brown and sophomore guard Micaela Ellis rest during the Jan. 24 Liberty game.
Women's basketball head coach Bill Reinson enters his thirteenth year with the program.
Reinson believes a run in postseason rests on the shoulders of seniors like Raven Williams (pictured).