The Opening Tip
•   Coming off a 62-59 comeback win on the road at High Point, Longwood returns to Willett Hall for a rematch against USC Upstate Saturday at 3 p.m.
•   Longwood will welcome back several alumni of the men's basketball program Saturday for alumni day. That group includes players from as far back as Longwood's inaugural team in 1976-77 to the 2013-14 team that was Longwood's second group to compete in the Big South.
•   After playing their first 10 Big South games in a span of 29 days, Longwood has played just three Big South games over the past 17 days.Â
•   In each of the past two games, Longwood has overcome double-digit deficits. The Lancers came back from 12 down to force overtime in an eventual 89-88 loss to Gardner-Webb and then rallied from 11 down to defeat High Point 62-59.
•   The 2018-19 Lancers have already won the second most games in the program's Division I era.
Last Time Out
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Shabooty Phillips scored Longwood's final 11 points of the game to lift the Lancers to a 62-59 comeback road win at High Point, completing a regular-season sweep over the Panthers Wednesday evening in the Millis Center.
•   Phillips' three-pointer with 3:36 left put Longwood within one point, 55-54, and his follow-up driving layup with 2:37 to play gave Longwood its first lead of the half, 56-55. He hit another jumper 30 seconds later to extend Longwood's lead to three, and then sank four consecutive free throws in the final 35 seconds to reclaim the lead after High Point jumped ahead on Jahaad Proctor's layup with 41 seconds remaining.
•   Phillips' heroics also included assists on three consecutive three-pointers just before his own scoring streak, hitting Sean Flood twice and
Jaylon Wilson once during a 9-2 run that turned a 49-42 High Point lead into a tied game, 51-51.
By The Numbers
•   Longwood is holding opponents to the lowest field goal percentage in the Big South at .406 (628-of-1,545).
•   Opponents are shooting just .476 (372-of-781) on two-point field goal attempts against Longwood, the lowest clip in the Big South. Longwood allows the fewest made two-pointers per game (13.8), nearly one full make fewer than the league's next closest team, High Point (14.7).Â
•   Longwood allows the most three-point field goal attempts in the Big South (764) but is holding teams to the league's sixth-lowest three-point clip at .335 (256-of-764).
•   Longwood first-year head coach
Griff Aldrich has already led Longwood to seven more wins than the team had one season ago, which currently ranks as the biggest turnaround among the 55 NCAA Division I head coaches who are in their first season at their respective institutions this season.
•   Also in the first year under Aldrich, the Longwood men's basketball program logged its highest GPA in six years during the fall semester.
•   Guard Seán Flood has been Longwood's most relied-upon player off the bench, being called on as Longwood's first sub a team-high 10 times and averaging a team-best 6.3 points per game as a reserve.
•   Longwood has held seven of its past 13 opponents under 30.0 percent shooting from three-point range. Twelve of Longwood's 28 foes have shot under 30.0 percent from long range.
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JaShaun Smith has been at his most aggressive offensively this season, averaging 8.4 field goal attempts per game. He averaged just 5.3 attempts per game as a sophomore and 6.0 as a freshman.
•   Smith has attempted at least 10 field goals in 13 games this year. He did so just eight times in his first two seasons combined.
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Shabooty Phillips is the Big South's leading free throw shooter at 87.9 percent (80-of-91), which would tie for the third-highest single-season mark in school history.
Quotable
"Basketball's a game of runs. Especially when you play our style with the threes, it can get you back in pretty quickly. Sean hit those two big threes in the second half, and that was a big deal for us."
— Head coach
Griff Aldrich on Longwood's 11-point comeback in Wednesday's 62-59 win at High Point
Series History
•   Longwood and USC Upstate meet for the second time this season and seventh time in series history Saturday in Willett Hall. USC Upstate leads the all-time series 6-0.
•   USC Upstate took the first meeting this season 80-63 behind 20 points from Deion Holmes and 16 from Malik Moore. That matchup was the first between the teams since USC Upstate joined the Big South this past summer.
•   USC Upstate's coaching staff includes a former Longwood assistant coach in Big South Hall-of-Famer Dr. Ron Bradley. Bradley served on Longwood's staff for two seasons under former head coach Jayson Gee from 2016-18.
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