The Longwood women’s basketball team is in the middle of a stellar two-season stretch that has seen them secure 39 wins between this season and the season prior. The architect is head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery. Since arriving in Farmville in 2022, she has created a winning culture and a playing style that has attracted quality players and national and regional media attention.
Lang-Montgomery came to Longwood after previous head coach Rebecca Tillett led Longwood to a Big South title and left to join Saint Louis University. Lang-Montgomery spent 10 years at the Division II level, where she became the winningest coach in Flagler College history. She herself was a player in the Southeastern Conference for the University of Florida from 1988-1992, and went back to coach at Florida from 2019-2022 as an assistant.
Now, in Farmville, she’s known colloquially by one word followed by a letter; Coach E. Whether it’s players or staff or even fans discussing her, they all seem to know her by this nickname, as if she were close family. Yet, that’s exactly what Longwood women’s basketball is: a family.
On the back of a stellar 21-win season in 2024-25, the Lancers rebuilt with plenty of new talent. Lang-Montgomery and her staff signed three freshmen and acquired two players from the transfer portal, while also only having two players run out of eligibility.
Lang-Montgomery may have added two players through the portal, but in a rarity in Division 1 athletics, she didn’t lose a single one. This made Longwood one of 25 of 363 Division I women’s basketball programs in the country to have a player transfer out.
“We had a successful season [last year], one of the best in Longwood’s history,” Lang-Montgomery said. “That experience created an environment where players were happy and they were thriving…I also think it’s the culture that myself and our staff have worked really hard to create.”
Their culture is what she calls: The Right STUPH. STUPH stands for Servitude, Thankfulness, Unity, Passion, and Humility. Her approach to team culture is evident regardless of the result at the Joan Perry Brock Center. Her team, win or lose, goes around the arena and thanks the fans for attending.
Lang-Montgomery’s players seem to respond to the team culture and community forward approach. “One thing I always tell people about Coach E is that she treats us like people. She makes sure that we know we're more than just basketball players,” junior center Otaifo Esenabhalu said.
“Coach E is a very caring person,” said graduate student guard Malea Brown, who's in her third and final year at Longwood. “She tells us that we are our own person and we get a say in stuff, and she listens to us.”
Lang-Montgomery’s focus on team culture and consistency doesn’t just apply to her players.
Assistant Coach Landis F. McCoy has been by her side for her entire time at Longwood, with assistant Rachel Balzer on the staff since 2023. In 2024, Lang-Montgomery added one of her former players at Division-II Flagler College, Ivana Boyd, as another assistant coach.
“I’m extremely thankful we were able to keep our staff together this year. It creates better trust and continued buy-in to our players when they know that relationships they’ve built with coaches can continue,” Lang-Montgomery said. “There's a lot of hours behind the scenes, watching film of our opponents as well as our players to help us find advantages on the basketball court.”
Lang-Montgomery’s team’s unique playing style features a suffocating defense meant to frustrate their opponents. The Lancers force more turnovers than nearly any other team in the country, sitting neck-and-neck with UConn for seventh in turnovers forced per game at just above 25. Longwood’s high intensity full court press leaves almost no room for opponents to breathe.
“Defense is our identity,” said Lang Montgomery. “In the recruiting process, [we need to] be able to find players that have the makeup, athleticism and ferociousness defensively to play that style of basketball.”
Longwood is in the 23rd percentile in Division 1 for total three pointers made, converting deep shots at a better rate than 77% of the country. Their high turnover defense often leaves plenty of space for those open shots. “We want to control pace, we want to control possessions, and having that mindset begins in the summer when we’re doing conditioning,” Lang-Montgomery said. “The training begins in the summer out on the track so they can understand ‘you’re doing this now so you can reap the rewards from it later’ and so I’m thankful we’ve been able to have success from it.”
Currently, the Lancers have six players averaging around eight points or more. In a 100-79 rout of fellow Big South school Winthrop in mid-January, the Lancers had seven players in double-figures, the most double-digit scorers in one game under Lang-Mongtomery. One of them was true freshman Jesstynie Scott who emerged on the scene and instantly scored the ball better than any young player in the Big South. As of mid-February, she has won Big South freshman of the week four times. “She has been a great addition to our program,” Lang-Montgomery said. “She’s someone I had made a connection with when she was just an eighth grader and I was an assistant at Florida…when I got the head job at Longwood I offered her a scholarship and it’s been fun to watch Jesstynie [Scott] mature and develop over the last few years. You’re seeing the fruits of her labor on the court as well.”
On a team that preaches family first, it should be no surprise that any player can have a great night scoring the ball. Whether it be a freshman like Scott, or a graduate student like Brown, everyone can get a chance.
Other prominent scorers include Brown, Frances Ulysse and Esenabhalu, all three of whom have been at Longwood for three years straight. Ulysse and Esenabhalu have been mainstays in the frontcourt for those three seasons. Esenabhalu leads the team and Big South conference in rebounding and rebounds per game with nine, while Ulysse is second in scoring on the team behind junior guard Amor Harris.
“Frances [Ulysse] and Otaifo [Esenabhalu] are our bookends,” said Lang-Montgomery. “As they have matured through our program there have been moments and longer stretches where we have had them on the floor together. They are fun to coach and fun to teach because that was my position in college. I feel like I have so much knowledge to pour into them.”
Longwood and Radford are neck-and-neck for the second in the Big South with two more games to play. Reigning champion High Point sits atop of the conference.
“We’re still an incomplete product,” Lang-Montgomery said. “We’re still working hard to be better in our press, we’re still working hard to be better and more efficient offensively… this year we got picked second [in the preseason poll], we’re higher, we have to be that or better every single night.”
“I’m excited to see how this journey goes this year. We’ve still got a lot of basketball to play and hopefully in March we’re riled up and ready to go.”
