HIGH POINT, N.C. – It's not about how you start; it's how you finish.
 
So after his Lancers took down Big South rival High Point 72-62 Saturday night on the road, how did Longwood head coach and his team finish the evening?
 
"We danced," he said.
 
Behind a career-high 27 points and a perfect 12-of-12 performance from the free throw line by point guard Juan Munoz, Longwood (7-14, 2-6 Big South) earned a postgame locker room celebration with a runaway double-digit win over the rival Panthers Saturday evening at Millis Convocation Center.
 
Munoz sparked a three-point barrage for Longwood, hitting five of the team's 11 three-pointers to lead the Lancers to their fourth consecutive win over High Point (5-16, 2-6 Big South) and third straight on the Panthers' home court. He finished 5-of-9 from the field – all three-pointers – and added five rebounds, three assists, a pair of steals and his second career block.
 
Munoz' fellow North Carolina native and former AAU teammate JaShaun Smith also got in on the Tar Heel State homecoming with 15 points, while junior forward Jordan Cintron finished with eight points, and eight rebounds, and put the exclamation point on the game with a contested, one-handed dunk on a fastbreak in the final minute.
 
The momentum from that slam followed Longwood into the locker room after the final buzzer where the revitalized Lancers celebrated their fourth straight win over the Panthers and the third in a row on High Point's home court.
 
"The guys did a great job. They really competed," Aldrich said. "Obviously some shots went down for us, but I think even if the shots hadn't gone down, we held them to 27 percent in the second half. That's how you win ball games."
 
The victory saw Longwood overcome a 0-of-10 shooting start to the game and shoot .559 (19-of-34) the rest of the way, including a .579 (11-of-19) clip from three-point range. Despite that early shooting drought, the Lancers trailed just 6-2 before Christian Wilson's three-pointer at 12:02 in the first half sparked a 16-4 rally that ballooned into a 39-32 halftime lead.
 
Longwood never trailed the rest of the way.
 
"At the beginning of the game, we didn't make shots and I thought we were stagnant," Aldrich said. "A little lethargic; sometimes when you travel on a bus the same day, it's hard to get your sea legs back. The ball was moving, but we weren't cutting, we weren't driving and we weren't driving for a teammate. I thought once we started doing that, we started to get some better looks.
 
"It speaks to competitiveness. They really wanted to win tonight."
 
Jamal Wright led High Point with 18 points and Eric Coleman Jr. added 10, but it took the duo a combined 8-of-22 shooting performance to get there.
 
Aldrich credited the backcourt duo of Heru Bligen and DeShaun Wade for spearheading that defensive effort, as well as Cintron for contributing effort and energy to a performance that saw the Lancers hold the Tubby Smith-led Panthers to just .340 (18-of-53) shooting on the night. The Lancers forced High Point into 16 turnovers and converted those giveaways into 21 points, their top scoring output off turnovers in Big South play this season.
 
"Tonight it was the story of our defense," he said. "That really has to be the story of the program. We want to be a team that plays really hard defensively, that competes on the defensive end of the floor but that's also really difficult to defend when we move into our offense. We've taken big steps toward trying to be that team, and I think we'll get there."
 
Shabooty Phillips also added nine points for Longwood, all in the games' final 10:11, including a long three-pointer with 5:29 remaining that stretched Longwood's lead from four points to seven. The Lancers led by no fewer than five points the rest of the way and ended the game on a 10-5 run with eight of those points coming from the free throw line.
 
"For us, we told the guys three things. Number one: We have to play with effort and purpose in that effort. I thought we had that tonight. Number two: We have to be connected on the court. We can't just be five guys out there quiet and not talking to one another, not having fun. Third, we have to execute better. I thought we executed well tonight in many respects."
 
The win preempts Longwood's upcoming rivalry showdown against Big South preseason No. 1 Radford, which tips off this Thursday, Jan. 30, at 7 p.m. in Willett Hall. The game will be a "Black Out Willett Hall" theme with students and fans encouraged to wear black.
 
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