LINK: Full 2019-20 Schedule
FARMVILLE, Va. – Last season Big South men's basketball experienced a league-wide renaissance with four 20-win teams and a conference-record six programs – including Longwood – advancing to postseason play.
Now entering year two under Joe B. Hall National Coach of the Year finalist
Griff Aldrich, the Lancers are poised to enter the scrum for the 2020 Big South Championship and will begin that quest with an 18-game conference schedule the league office announced Thursday.
Thursday the Big South revealed that 2019-20 conference lineup and dealt the Lancers a two-month gauntlet that pits them against every league foe twice with the exception of 2019 champion Gardner-Webb and regular-season co-champion Radford. In total, the conference slate offers Longwood nine road games and nine home games, setting the stage for a 14-game home schedule on the Lancer's Jerome Kersey Court in Willett Hall.
Season tickets for Longwood men's basketball, which also includes home matchups against Marymount (Nov. 5), UMES (Nov. 12), St. Francis-Brooklyn (Nov. 14) Randolph (Nov. 15) and The Citadel (Nov. 19), will be available in the first week of September for renewals and later in the month for first-time purchasers.
With the Big South season commencing for Longwood at Jan. 2 at Winthrop, the Lancers will host nine of their 10 Big South rivals in Willett Hall through the end of February. Those home matchups include showdowns against perennial league frontrunners Radford (Jan. 30), Winthrop (Feb. 8) and High Point (Feb. 22), as well as USC Upstate (Jan. 4), Presbyterian (Jan. 16), UNC Asheville (Jan. 20), Charleston Southern (Feb. 6), Campbell (Feb. 10) and Hampton (Feb. 15).
Longwood's lone home opponent exclusion is 2020 Big South Tournament champion Gardner-Webb, whom the Lancers face just once, on the road Feb 1. With an 18-game schedule, every Big South team faces each conference partner twice – one at home and one on the road – with the exception of two teams, as decided by the Big South Conference office. Longwood's other one-game partner for 2019-20 is co-champion and Commonwealth rival Radford, whom the Lancers get their lone shot against on Jerome Kersey Court at the end of January.
Each of those 18 Big South games, as well as all games at the Big South Championship tournament on March 3-8, will air on ESPN's family of networks, including streaming service ESPN+. An additional six dates will also be designated as ESPN Wildcard selections with ESPN selecting one game on each date to air live on ESPNU or ESPNews: Jan. 16, Jan. 30, Feb. 6, Feb. 13, Feb. 20 and Feb. 27.
The Big South schedule forms the latter half of the Lancers' 2019-20 season, following a 13-game non-conference schedule that includes road trips to regional foes George Mason (Nov. 8) and George Washington (Dec. 28), as well as notable road trips to Northern Illinois (Nov. 18), UC Riverside (Nov. 26) and Pacific (Nov. 29) as part of the Collegiate Hoops Roadshow. Longwood will also travel to reigning MEAC runner-up North Carolina A&T (Dec. 4), Morgan State (Dec. 7) and Stetson (Dec. 15) in non-conference play before jumping into Big South competition.
Last season Longwood joined the Big South's breakout party with a bounceback year that was among the biggest turnarounds in all of college basketball in 2018-19. In year one under Aldrich, the Lancers amassed 16 wins – second-most of the Division I era – earned an invitation to the Roman College Basketball Invitational (CBI), and defeated Conference USA powerhouse Southern Miss in the tournament's first round. Longwood went 11-6 against non-conference foes and took down a number of traditional Big South powers, including a season sweep of High Point and a statement win on the road at Winthrop.
That season saw Longwood finish 16-18 overall with four losses decided by just one possession, including a one-point overtime loss to Gardner-Webb and a two-point defeat at the hands of co-champion Campbell. Longwood's 16 wins trailed only the 2008-09 Lancers' 17 wins for the program's most beginning the transition to the Division I level in 2004-05.
Longwood returns much of its core from 2018-19, including its top six leading scorers in seniors
Shabooty Phillips (14.0 ppg.),
Jaylon Wilson (11.0),
JaShaun Smith (10.6) and Seán Flood (6.2), junior
Jordan Cintron (5.9) and redshirt sophomore
Juan Munoz (5.8). The group has been further bolstered by a sizable, talented eight-man recruiting class that makes Longwood's 2019-20 roster the tallest in the program's Division I history.
#GoWood
