The Opening Tip
• Looking to improve to 5-0 at home for the first time since the 1994-95 Lancers opened the year with seven consecutive home wins, Longwood hosts Averett for a 7 p.m. tipoff Thursday in Willett Hall.
• The Lancers have defeated three of their four home opponents this season by double digits and boast a +16.7 scoring margin home games.
• This season Longwood is off to a 7-4 start that is the best of the program's 15-year Division I era. The last Longwood team to win at least seven of their first 11 games was the 2001-02 Lancers under head coach Mike Leeder. Only 12 of Longwood's 41 teams in program history have won at least seven of their first 11 games.
• Juniors
Shabooty Phillips and
JaShaun Smith are the only Lancers to have started all 11 games this season. Those two also rank No. 1 and No. 2 in minutes per game this season and have accounted for 36 percent of Longwood's scoring.
Last Time Out
• Eric Williams Jr. scored a team-high 22 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to lead Duquesne back from an 18-point deficit en route to an 80-71 comeback win over Longwood Sunday afternoon at the A.J. Palumbo Center.
• Williams played all but 30 seconds during a second half in which the Dukes overcame Longwood's 62-47 lead by scoring 16 unanswered points to stake their first lead of the game with 5:09 remaining.
• Duquesne turned the game around with a 16-0 run in the second half. The Dukes scored on nine of 10 possessions during that stretch.
•
JaShaun Smith scored a career-high 20 points for Longwood, while
Shabooty Phillips added 18 and a career-high seven assists.
• Lancer point guard Seán Flood collided with the goal padding with 17:14 to play and did not return. Longwood shot just .316 (6-of-19) from the field for the remainder of the game.
By The Numbers
• Longwood made it until the 11th game of the season before allowing an opponent to score at least 75 points. Duquesne became the first team to surpass that mark against the Lancers this past Sunday an 80-71 win, needing a 48-point second half to get there.
• In 22 halves this season, Longwood has allowed 40 points just three times. The Lancers have held the opposition to fewer than 30 points in a half eight times and fewer than 20 twice.
• Following his 4-of-6 shooting performance from three-point range against Duquesne,
JaShaun Smith is shooting .384 (61-of-159) from three-point range for his career. That would rank first on Longwood's all-time list.
• Smith is shooting .529 (9-of-17) from three in his past three games and is averaging 16.7 points per game during that stretch. Included in that span is his first career 20-point game.
• Longwood head coach
Griff Aldrich is among the winningest newly hired head coaches in Division I basketball this season, ranking 11th on that 55-member list with a .636 (7-4) winning percentage. He trails only Pitt's Jeff Capel, who is 7-3.
• Of the 18 new Division I head coaches who inherited single-digit-win teams from a year ago, Aldrich is one of only three currently with a winning record.
• Longwood leads the Big South in opponent scoring average (61.9), opponent field goal percentage (.378) and rebounding margin (+4.6).
• Longwood has outrebounded eight of its first 11 opponents. The Lancers lead the Big South with a .785 defensive rebound percentage.
• The Big South's No. 5 defensive rebounder is 6-1, 180-pound Longwood guard
Shabooty Phillips, who averages 5.1 boards per game on the defensive glass. Phillips has at least five rebounds in seven of his past nine games, including 11 in a win over VMI.
Series History
• Longwood and Averett meet for the 14th time in series history and the third time since Longwood made the jump to the Division I level in 2004-05.
• The Lancers are 8-5 all-time against the Cougars and 2-0 since becoming a Division I program.
• Thursday's meeting will be the third in the past five years between the teams. Longwood opened the 2014-15 season with a 79-53 win over Averett and took down the Cougars 86-67 on Dec. 14, 2016. Each of those games took place in Willett Hall.
• The second game in the history of Longwood men's basketball was against Averett during the inaugural 1976-77 season.
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