The Opening Tip
• Following a stretch of six straight road games, Longwood returns to its home court for the first time in more than a month Thursday.
• Longwood is 4-0 at home but has not played on Jerome Kersey Court since rattling off three home wins in a five-day span from Nov. 12-15.
• Thursday's game against The Citadel will be a rematch of Longwood's highest-scoring game from 2018-19, which the Lancers won 110-94 in Charleston, S.C., on Dec. 29, 2018.
• Happy Holidays is the theme in Willett Hall Thursday. Fans who bring a stuffed teddy bear for the halftime "Teddy Bear Toss" donation will receive free admission. Fans are also encouraged to wear their tackiest holiday sweater for a halftime tacky sweater contest.
• Longwood senior
JaShaun Smith and Citadel junior Alex Reed were teammates at Garner High School in Garner, N.C. The pair led Garner to the 2015 North Carolina 4A State Championship.
Last Time Out
• Backed by season highs of 24 points from
Shabooty Phillips and 21 from
Jaylon Wilson, Longwood pulled out a 76-72 gut-check win over Stetson in a return to form that saw second-year head coach
Griff Aldrich's squad turn in one of their best all-around performances of the season.
• In the first game following an eight-day break for exam week, Longwood hit 11 three-pointers, shot 84.0 percent from the free throw line and forced stops on five of Stetson's final seven possessions to emerge from a back-and-forth battle that featured 10 lead changes.
• Phillips and Wilson hit a combined five go-ahead shots in the second half, including a pair of back-to-back three-pointers from Wilson and the free throw from Phillips that gave Longwood the lead for good with 1:42 to play.
• Longwood's final 12 points all came from the free throw line.
Jordan Cintron hit 9-of-10, while Phillips knocked down 7-of-8.
By The Numbers
• Longwood has faced The Citadel head coach Duggar Baucom six times, with five of those matchups coming when Baucom was at VMI. Longwood has hit 110 points in two of those games — both wins — while Baucom's VMI Keydets have scored at least 90 points five times, including a 114-82 defeat of the Lancers on Dec. 11, 2010.
• In their last meeting on Dec. 29, 2018, the Lancers and Bulldogs combined for 204 points with Longwood pulling out a 110-94 win. That ranked as the second-highest combined scoring game of Longwood's Division I era, trailing only the Lancers' 110-97 loss at Eastern Kentucky on Nov. 22, 2015.
• Longwood is the only team in the Big South to have held every opposing team under 80 points this season. Lancer opponents have reached 80 points in just nine of head coach
Griff Aldrich's 44 games at the helm.
• The Lancers have yet to allow an opposing player to reach 20 points in a game this season and has allowed only four players to surpass 15 points.
• Longwood is 14-5 at home in its two seasons under Aldrich. The Lancers are 4-0 in Willett Hall for the second straight season and have won five straight on their home floor.
• Longwood assistant coach
Marty McGillan spent four seasons as an assistant coach at The Citadel from 1997-2001 under former head coach Pat Dennis. He also spent one year on staff at neighboring College of Charleston in 2001-02.
•
Shabooty Phillips has led Longwood in points, rebounds and assists in the same game twice this season and three times in his career.
DeShaun Wade has done so once this season.
• The Lancers are 5-2 in their final non-conference home game since joining the Big South in 2012-13. Longwood won last year's non-conference home finale 77-63 over Stetson on Dec. 21, 2018.
Quotable
"They gutted out a win, and to do it on the road at the end of a long month when things haven't really gone your way, it's really a credit to these guys and their resiliency."
— Longwood head coach
Griff Aldrich after the Dec. 15 game at Stetson
Series History
• Longwood and The Citadel meet for the second straight year and for the second time in series history.
• Longwood won last year's matchup, 110-94, in a high-scoring showdown that was the second-highest combined scoring game of Longwood's Division I era.
• Longwood is 3-5 against teams currently in the Southern Conference since making the jump to the Division I level during the 2004-05 season.
• Last year's game against The Citadel came after a seven-day break for the holidays for Longwood, while this year's precedes an eight-game holiday break.
• Prior to taking over at The Citadel, head coach Duggar Baucom faced Longwood seven times as head coach of VMI.
#GoWood
