Men's basketball redshirt senior Lotanna Nwogbo capped his final regular season in dominant fashion, earning Big South Player of the Week honors after leading the Lancers to a season-ending win at Radford that locked up the program's highest-ever finish in the Big South standings.
Nwogbo averaged 26.5 points, 10.0 rebounds, 2.5 blocks and 1.0 steals per game in Saturday's 92-81 win at Radford and Thursday's buzzer-beating 74-73 loss to Presbyterian.
The 6-8, 255-pound Nwogbo topped the 20-point plateau in both games, including the career-high 29-point outburst in Saturday's season-ending road win at Radford. Against the Highlanders, Nwogbo hit his final seven field goal attempts to pull Longwood out of a 20-point hole and spark a 51-20 run over the game's final 14 minutes. With Longwood down 61-41 with 13:59 to play, Nwogbo threw down the dunk that sparked the game-ending run and scored 16 of his 29 points during that final surge.
Nwogbo's performance in the season finale followed his seventh consecutive double-double Thursday against the Blue Hose in which he scored 24 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and blocked four shots. He hit 8-of-11 shots from the field and 8-of-11 from the free throw line, but Presbyterian overcame the effort on a buzzer-beating jumper.
The win over Radford lifted Longwood into eighth place in the final Big South standings, giving the Lancers the No. 8 seed in the upcoming Big South Championship and a first-round matchup against No. 9 seed Charleston Southern Thursday at 2 p.m. at Pope Arena in Buies Creek, N.C.
On the week, Nwogbo shot .714 (20-of-28) from the field and .650 (13-of-20) from the line while averaging 34.5 minutes. He saw his seven-game double-double streak snap at Radford, finishing with eight rebounds. Nwogbo ends the regular season as the Big South leader in double-doubles (13) and rebounds per game (8.3), while ranking second in field goal percentage (.581, 179-of-308), sixth in scoring (15.8) and fifth in blocks (1.3).
