Longwood University Athletics

By CHRIS COOK
LongwoodLancers.com

FARMVILLE, Va. – College basketball's spotlight has been no stranger to the Commonwealth this year.
 
The state's 14 Division I teams are a combined 113-79. Five of those squads already have double-digit wins. ACC contenders Virginia and Virginia Tech are both ranked in the Associated Press top 10 and have just one loss between them. Even at the mid-major level, Liberty, Old Dominion, Radford and VCU have all made headlines with high-major upsets, making the state of Virginia a land of national powerhouses powerhouses and giant-killers in waiting.
 
This Saturday, however, at least a portion of that spotlight will shine bright on a high-stakes matchup that few in Virginia saw coming. The Dedmon Center in Radford, Va., will be the unlikely setting and ESPN+ the broadcast platform for the suddenly can't-miss Big South opener between Radford and Longwood, two teams who have put their own unique markers on the college basketball map this season.
 
But even for a game that already comes with a built-in cache of rivalry-fueled fodder, the matchup between Longwood and Radford still stands on its own. Big South preseason No. 1 Radford (8-6) enters as the presumed Goliath, having broken through to the Big South's elite tier last season by winning the conference championship and advancing to the NCAA Tournament where they pulled off a first-round win over NIU Brooklyn.
 
However, the upstart Lancers are preparing to meet the Highlanders head-on, riding a wave of momentum the program has not seen in nearly two decades.
 
Now 10-5 after a whirlwind non-conference season, the last time the Lancers had this many wins so early in the season was in 2000-01 when Longwood University was still Longwood College. Under first-year head coach Griff Aldrich, the Lancers lead the Big South in opponent scoring average (64.3) and opponent field goal percentage (.386), are the Big South's No. 4 team in the NCAA NET rankings, and have consistently played with a new identity grounded in grit and toughness inspired by their new staff.
 
"There are a lot of things you can't control, but your effort, your grit, and your toughness, that should never be second," said Aldrich. "If it is, I have a problem with that."
 
With an up-tempo offense and a mantra of "Let it fly," Longwood has outrun, outshot and outworked its opponents this season. The Lancers have clawed back from second-half deficits in five of their 10 wins and suffered four of their five losses by single digits, including a 42-39 loss to Charlotte and a 64-62 loss against Denver – both on the road.
 
As a result, the new-look Lancers own the program's best non-conference record since joining the Big South in 2012-13 and are off to the program's best 15-game start since the 2000-01 Lancers opened the year 11-4 en route to 23-8 record, a No. 21 national ranking and an NCAA Tournament appearance.
 
"To be completely honest, I expected that going into this year," said redshirt senior guard Isaiah Walton, Longwood's leading scorer who is coming off a season-best 29 points in a win over The Citadel in only his second game back from an eight-game injury hiatus.
 
"I could just tell by how our summer went, the new structure that's been put in, our new offense and our new guys. I had a really good feeling we would win the games we've been winning. I think we should even have won the games we've lost, but those losses were good learning points for us."
 
But while Longwood's last team to experience this level of first-half success did so with the addition of 2001 NCAA Division II Player of the Year Colin Ducharme, a graduate transfer from Virginia, there has been no magic bullet inserted into a chamber of Longwood's rotation this year.
 
Walton has long been perceived as Longwood's star, but he missed eight straight games with an injury this year. During that time, Longwood went 4-4 and displayed a system that gives any player a chance to take hold of the spotlight any given night.
 
Shabooty Phillips has become the name most bandied among Longwood's fanbase, but he is one of many. The outside-the-box-score impact of forwards Pernell Adgei, Jordan Cintron, Spencer Franklin and Damarion Geter often goes unsung but has been equally as crucial to Longwood's success as the high-scoring exploits of Walton, the sure-handedness of point guards Phillips and Sean Flood, and the wealth of eye-popping moments generated by high-flying, do-it-all wing JaShaun Smith.
 
It's a structure grounded in unselfishness and, after a tone-setting win over Richmond in the second game of the season, one that has made Longwood one of the Commonwealth's aforementioned giant-killers in waiting.
 
"Coach gives us a lot of confidence, just telling us to 'Let it fly' out there," Walton said. "Any player likes to hear that. On top of that, we have great shooters. We work on our game a lot more than we have in the past, and I just feel like a lot of our guys have that confidence from working so hard. Those reps show up at game time."
 
Now Longwood is heading for its biggest test of the season against a Radford team that sits higher in the NCAA Net rankings than any of its opponents so far. The Lancers are undoubtedly the underdogs, but they have flipped those predictions many times before. They were underdogs in the 63-58 win over Richmond, in a 67-65 win against Fairfield and, most recently, in a 110-94 blowout against the NCAA's top scoring team, The Citadel.
 
Moreover, the common cliché of throwing out records for a rivalry game has held true in the Longwood-Radford series, especially since the Lancers become a Big South partner of the Highlanders in 2012-13. Of Longwood's seven wins in the series, three have come in Big South play. One of those was a 90-79 double-overtime thriller in Willett Hall in 2014-15, while another saw the Lancers overcome a 20-point deficit en route to a 92-81 win on Radford's home court in the 2015-16 season finale.
 
And as if Saturday's rivalry renewal needed any more fuel, just 10 months ago, Radford ended Longwood's season and dreams of a Cinderella run through the 2018 Big South Championship in heartbreaking fashion. After Longwood battled back to tie the game in the final minute, the Highlanders' Donald Hicks hit a go-ahead three-pointer with 34 seconds remaining that set  Radford on a path to winning the Big South Championship.
 
Radford will mark the Big South debut for Aldrich as well, and a difficult test it will be. The Highlanders lead a crop of four Big South teams, Longwood included, that currently rank among the NCAA Net top 200. Eight of the league's 11 teams are .500 or better, including Longwood and Gardner-Webb who are tied atop the winning percentage leaderboard at 10-5 apiece.
 
Win or lose Saturday, the Lancers will embark on a full schedule's worth of Big South games – 16 total, in fact – to maintain their Cinderella success.
 
"I know how college basketball is, and every single game is going to be a grind," Walton said. "We're not going to take anybody for granted out there. That's the best way to look at it: Don't take anybody lightly, so there are no surprises."
 
That's good advice – some Longwood's opponents are no doubt following these days, too.
 
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