Postgame Press Conference: Gee, Johnson & Taylor

CONWAY, S.C. – Shaquille Johnson recorded his second straight double-double with 22 points and a career-high 15 rebounds to lead ninth-seeded Longwood to a 68-60 upset win over top-seeded Charleston Southern in the quarterfinals of the VisitMyrtleBeach.com Big South Championship Friday at The HTC Center.
 
Longwood (11-22) now usurps the tournament's No. 1 seed with a semifinal matchup against fourth-seeded Winthrop looming Saturday at noon.
 
"The will of this team can't be evaluated," said head coach Jayson Gee, who has the Lancers in their first Big South semifinal in his second year leading the program. "We're on a mission. We're on a mission to prove to this conference we belong."
 
The underdog Lancers upended a Charleston Southern (19-11)  team loaded with the Big South Player of the Year, Saah Nimley, All-Big South second team selection Will Saunders, and Big South Coach of the Year Barclay Radebaugh. Nimley managed just 13 points on 4-of-12 shooting against the defensive tandem of Quincy Taylor, Shaquille Johnson and Leron Fisher, while the Buccaneers committed 16 turnovers that Longwood turned into 21 points.
 
In the course of three days, Longwood has ascended from preseason Big South bottom-dweller to one of the last four Big South teams left standing, alongside Winthrop, Gardner-Webb and either UNC Asheville or Coastal Carolina pending the result of Friday's final game. Key to that rise has been the play of Johnson, who is averaging 23.5 points and 13.5 rebounds in two tournament games, and Taylor, a fifth-year senior and All-Big South second team selection who is just one loss away from the end of his collegiate career.
 
"I'm proud of these two guys to my right," said Gee in the postgame press conference sitting alongside those two, who combined for 25 of Longwood's 39 points in the second half. "They've just taken their games to another level, especially Shaq. Fifteen rebounds, 22 points and five blocks. They just didn't have an answer for him."
 
Johnson, who scored 25 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in a first-round tournament win over Presbyterian Wednesday, carried the Lancers for the second straight game in upsetting the Big South regular season champions. The 6-5 junior forward hit 9-of-20 field goals and added a career-high five blocks as Longwood became the first nine seed to upset a one seed in the Big South Tournament.
 
Taylor, meanwhile, saved his heroics for the second half when he scored 11 points in the final 12 minutes to help Longwood sustain a Charleston Southern surge that nearly cut Longwood's nine-point halftime lead to four points. The redshirt senior hit his final three field goal attempts and all four free throws during that final stretch, including a dagger of a three-pointer with 4:13 remaining that put Longwood ahead by 10.
 
"I just didn't want to make this the last game of my career," said Taylor, whose last three-pointer was Longwood's school-record tying 265th of the season. "My teammates didn't want me to go out on a loss like this."
 
Johnson echoed that concern both in his postgame comments and his play on the court. He scored 12 points in the second half and stuck an exclamation point in the victory with a breakaway dunk with 17 seconds left. The dunk, set up by a steal from Darrion Allen and a handoff from Fisher on the fast break, capped Johnson's fifth 20-point game of the season and the third straight win for a team that had not won back-to-back games until the postseason.
 
"It's amazing when you love your players and they love each other and they love you, the things you can get accomplished when it doesn't look like it," Gee said. "You look at our roster, and you think, well we've got a couple freshmen, we've got one fifth-year senior, but what you can't see is the resiliency that's built behind the love we have for one another and the commitment to the vision I had when I brought them here. They see it clearly.
 
"They don't act like, walk like or talk like their record and they haven't all year, despite whatever adversity they've faced."
 
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