With half of conference play in the books, Longwood women’s basketball has roared out of the gate to their best start since joining the Big South in 2012. With a 7-1 record entering February, the Lancers have already secured victories over last year’s regular season champions, High Point, and the reigning tournament champions, Presbyterian.
Since being named the All-Tournament MVP in December’s Shirley Duncan Classic, sophomore guard Amor Harris has been the Lancers’ go-to shooter this season, leading the team in scoring. Longwood Head Coach Erika Lang-Montgomery complimented Harris’ approach to her game, “She didn’t just start putting in the work this season, she was putting in the work before she got to Longwood, even last year when she wasn’t playing as many minutes. It says a lot about who she is as a person.”
The emergence of Harris on the offensive side of the ball hasn’t been the only thing that has paid dividends for the Lancers this season. Longwood’s defense is among the best in all of women’s college basketball.
Graduate guard Kiki McIntryre leads the entire country in steals with 87 as of Jan. 31. Lang-Montgomery’s team has three players in the nation’s top 30 in steals, with senior guards Mariah Wilson tied for twelfth with 61, and Malea Brown tied for twenty eighth with 56.
As a team, Longwood is first in all of NCAA women’s D1 basketball in steals per game, averaging 14.9, and first in turnovers forced, at 26 per game. Their overall +7.77 turnover margin is good enough for fifteenth in the nation.
“[This is] the style of play that I wanted to do since I got to Longwood,” said Lang-Montgomery. “We were able to show glimpses of it the first two years, but I think it had to be a total buy-in from everybody.”
Longwood’s only conference loss came by a single point on the road at USC Upstate on Jan. 25, and the Lancers responded by taking down Gardner-Webb at home on Jan. 29, led by Harris’ 15 points. After the win, Lang-Montgomery said, “Our response was great tonight. You never know when you have a tough loss, how the next game [will look], you could hang your head…or you could take a positive, next-game mentality.”
For the players, they’ve focused on valuing team success over self, and their commitment to defense and shared scoring responsibility has been the key. The team also leads the Big South Conference in assists, at 14.6 per game.
McIntyre said, “We have no one who’s selfish on our team. We don’t have anyone who is going to take the last shot because they want extra points.”
The first-place Lancers are one game ahead of High Point with eight games remaining before the Big South Tournament begins on March 5.
Sophomore forward Frances Ulysse, third on the team in scoring, said the team isn’t getting ahead of themselves. “Even though we’re on top, we’re not taking it for granted and we’re really focusing on the little details.”
The women’s team puts their 9-2 home record on the line against Charleston Southern on Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Joan Perry Brock Center.
