The Opening Tip
•   Longwood has opened December 3-1 to extend a historic start to the 2018-19 season that has the Lancers sitting at 8-4 overall. That 12-game start is the program's best of the 15-year Division I era.
•   The last Longwood team to win at least eight of their first 12 games was the 2002-03 squad under head coach Mike Leeder. Only 13 of Longwood's 41 teams in program history have won at least eight of their first 12 games.
•   Longwood has secured a winning non-conference record for the first time since joining the Big South in 2012-13 and only the second time since making the jump to Division I in 2004-05.
•   Longwood President W. Taylor Reveley IV and Cornell head coach Brian Earl are both Princeton graduates and former Tiger student-athletes. Reveley was a member of the football team and graduated in 1996, while Earl played basketball for the Tigers and graduated three years after.
Last Time Out
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Shabooty Phillips scored 23 points and dished six assists as part of a marathon performance that helped Longwood dispatch Averett 81-57 Thursday evening in Willett Hall.
•   In the absence of fellow point guards Seán Flood and
Juan Munoz, Phillips played 38-plus minutes and shot 8-of-13 from the floor and 5-of-9 from three-point range. He did not come off the floor until the final 90 seconds of the game when the Lancers led comfortably by 22 points.
•   Phillips scored 17 points after halftime to send Longwood to a runaway second half in which they outscored the Cougars 47-23.
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Damarion Geter stuffed the stat sheet with 11 points, 10 rebounds, two assists, two blocks and a steal as part of his second double-double of the season.
JaShaun Smith added 14 points, and
Jaylon Wilson – in his Longwood debut – scored 13 during 28 turnover-free minutes.
By The Numbers
•   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 .667 (8-4) winning percentage. He trails only Pitt's Jeff Capel (8-3) for the best winning percentage of all new coaches.
•   In 24 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 nine times and fewer than 20 twice.
•   Longwood has outrebounded nine of its first 12 opponents and leads the Big South with a +5.6 rebounding margin.
•   The Lancers have allowed just five dunks in 12 games this season while throwing down 25 of their own. Junior forward
JaShaun Smith leads the team with 11 of those dunks.
•   Smith is also in pursuit of Longwood's all-time three-point shooting percentage record, currently sitting atop that list with a .384 (61-of-164) mark in his first three seasons.
•   Over his past four games,
Damarion Geter has amassed two double-doubles and averaged 10.5 rebounds, 7.8 points, 1.8 blocks and 1.5 steals per game. He has at least 10 rebounds in three of those games and 24.1 percent of Longwood's total rebounds during that span.
•   With 93 career blocks, Geter ranks fourth on Longwood's all-time list and is on the verge of becoming only the fourth player in program history to block 100 career shots.
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Shabooty Phillips has scored in double figures in five straight games while posting three 20-point games. He is averaging a team-high 19.8 points and 3.6 assists per game during that span.
•   Phillips averages 9.2 points in the second half of games this season, compared to 4.4 points in the first half. He has scored at least 20 points in the second half twice this season.
Series History
•   Longwood and Cornell meet for the third time in series history and second straight season Monday in Ithaca, N.Y. Cornell leads the series 2-0.
•   The game will be a rematch of last year's Dec. 16, 2017 meeting in which Cornell fended off a late Longwood rally to claim a 69-62 win in Farmville. Longwood overcame a 12-point deficit to close the gap to three points in the final minute before Cornell's Matt Morgan and Josh Warren hit four straight free throws to ice the victory.
•   Longwood has never faced Cornell in Ithaca. The only other meeting between the teams took place in Las Vegas on Nov. 24, 2012.Â
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