FARMVILLE, Va. – Campbell's Chris Clemons isn't ready to give up the title of the Big South's best player just yet.
 
But Saturday afternoon at Longwood, he may have found somebody willing to take the torch.
 
Campbell (17-11, 10-4 Big South) needed 41 points from Clemons to survive an end-game surge from Longwood junior Shabooty Phillips, who went toe-to-toe with the NCAA's leading scorer and nearly pulled Longwood back from a double-digit deficit before Clemons pushed the Fighting Camels over the top for a 74-72 barnburner in Willett Hall.
 
Clemons put the Fighting Camels on his back from the opening whistle and had them on pace for a double-digit win, but Longwood's breakout point guard met him on the big stage and engaged in a five-minute duel that became one of the most exciting spurts of Big South basketball this season.
 
Clemons and Phillips went head-to-head in a back-and-forth, end-game battle in which they combined for 24 of the game's final 31 points in the over the last 4:41 of regulation. Phillips scored 14 of those points in succession for Longwood (15-15, 5-10 Big South) to pull the Lancers out of a nine-point hole and give his team the final shot at the end of the two-point game.
 
Both Phillips and Clemons scored 19 points in the second half, but Clemons defended his status as the Big South's best in the closing seconds when he flew in from an improbable distance to block Phillips' desperation jumper at the buzzer.
 
That last-second block was the exclamation point on yet another dominant performance from the reigning Big South Player of the Year, who carried Campbell to its fourth win in the past five games. In his fourth 40-point game of the season, Clemons hit 12-of-24 shots from the floor, 6-of-14 from three-point range and 11-of-11 from the charity stripe while also adding two assists, two steals and the game-winning block.
 
"I don't think he took an open shot," said Longwood head coach Griff Aldrich. "Maybe he took one or two where he broke loose, but I don't think he had an open shot all night. He just made shots, and that's why he's going to be the player of the year. A lot of those were with people hanging all over him, so at the end of this stretch here, he made two or three that were just extremely challenging shots.
 
"You just have to shake his hand on those. But what I love about our guys is they didn't stop. The reality is when he didn't make those shots, we came down and we were aggressive offensively."
 
Longwood faced a double-digit deficit as late as 12 minutes into the second half before rallying for an 11-2 run that cut the score to 64-62.
 
Phillips was the sparkplug that ignited that comeback, scoring 14 straight points to initiate a showdown with his Fighting Camels counterpart at the point.
 
Phillips hit a three-pointer to close the deficit to 64-62, but Clemons responded with a layup to push it back to two possessions. Phillips responded with a pull-up jumper in the paint, and Clemons answered with another near-impossible three-pointer to make it 69-64. Phillips then sank a contested layup, drew the foul and hit the free throw for a three-point play, but Clemons hit a three-pointer 27 seconds later to push the lead back to 62-57.
 
But even after the two traded miscues – Phillips with a turnover and Clemons with a missed jumper – the battle continued. Trailing by five with less than 30 seconds to play, Phillips drove through the lane and found fellow junior Jaylon Wilson wide open for a three-pointer in the corner, cutting Campbell's lead to 72-70. Clemons then got open on an inbounds pass and forced a foul with 17 seconds left, which he converted to two free throws to extend the lead to 74-70.
 
That's when things got really interesting.
 
After Clemons hit his two free throws, Longwood sophomore forward Jordan Cintron grabbed an offensive rebound on a missed three-pointer by JaShaun Smith and was fouled by Andrew Eudy on the putback. Cintron hit both free throws to cut Campbell's lead to 74-72.
 
Phillips then fronted Clemons on the ensuing inbounds play and forced passer Cory Gensler to force the ball in to Clemons on the right sideline. Clemons bobbled the ball and, falling out of bounds, heaved it in the air toward Campbell's basket where Jaylon Wilson grabbed it and passed to Phillips.
 
With the final second winding down, Phillips put up a long two-point jumper, but Clemons recovered in time to fly in front and get a hand on it to end the game.
 
"Shabooty really showed up well there in the second half, and I think we were definitely the aggressive team after halftime," Aldrich said. "I think we out-competed them in the second half. We won the second half by eight points, and I think if it goes to overtime, we may come out of there with a win. I'm really proud of their fight. Our message to the guys before the game was to compete, and they flat out did."
 
After stumbling through a first half in which they shot just .346 (9-of-26) from the floor and yielded 22 points to Clemons, the Lancers bounced back to shoot .571 (16-of-28) from the floor and .500 (5-of-10) from three-point range. Both Jaylon Wilson and Jordan Cintron were 3-of-4 from the floor after the break with both contributing clutch shots in the final minute that kept the game within one possession.
 
"The reality is we got a lot of really good looks tonight and just didn't make them," Aldrich said. "Jaylon was 1-for-7, Shabooty was 2-for-8, Juan [Munoz] is 1-for-4. We were 8-for-25 from three, and a bunch of those are really good looks for us, and we just didn't knock them down. That's part of the game, but our offense is to spread the floor and shoot those, and tonight they just didn't drop for us."
 
"The reality is," Aldrich continued, "if you make two or three more of those, you're still shooting under 50, maybe 40 percent, and you win by six or seven. But you have to make them."
 
The loss comes in Longwood's final home game in Willett Hall this season, ending the Lancers' 2018-19 with a 9-5 home record for the most home victories since 2008-09. Graduate student Damarion Geter – in his sixth year as a member of the program and fifth as a team captain – ended his final game in Willett Hall with eight points, six rebounds, one assist and a steal. Senior Spencer Franklin, a season-long starter alongside Geter, added three points , two rebounds and an assist despite battling early foul trouble.
 
Longwood will conclude the regular season next Saturday, March 2, at Gardner-Webb before opening the 2019 Big South Championship tournament on March 5.
 
"We made a lot of mistakes tonight, but that's part of the game," Aldrich said. "You knock off a few of those mistakes and it's a different outcome. Our goal is to just get a little bit more crisp, take a little bit of a step forward each day that we play. As you saw today, this group has a lot of fight in them, and I don't see that dying at all. We get a week off due to the awkward bye situation, and we'll take a few days to rest and regroup, and we 'll get back at it. We intend to compete with Gardner-Webb and then make a hard run in the tournament."
 
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