Longwood University Athletics

Christian Wilson is a junior forward and communication studies major on the Longwood men's basketball team. This is the second in a series of blogs he will provide to LongwoodLancers.com, giving an inside look at the Lancers' 2020-21 season and life as a Longwood student-athlete. Read more from Wilson on his personal blog at https://cwil1.blogspot.com/. 
 
By CHRISTIAN WILSON '21
Special to LongwoodLancers.com

Where do I begin? These past two weeks have been an absolute rollercoaster!
 
To give you a glimpse, almost two weeks ago we weren't sure our program we would be temporarily shut down because of a COVID-19 exposure. Fast forward two weeks, and the Longwood Lancers ended up going viral as we received the No. 1 spot on Sportscenter's Top 10 plays. A wild ride it has been.
 
After the Presbyterian series, we were preparing for our longest road trip of the year: Charleston Southern. Just before boarding the bus, we received terrible news. Contact tracing potentially linked us to a positive test that would affect our program. Bags packed and all, we were told that our trip was not going to happen. It was extremely disappointing to say the least, especially since we had been extremely blessed to be one of the few programs in our conference and in the country to have not been significantly affected by COVID-19 so far.
 
However, as I mentioned before, adversity finds a way to affect everyone. Yet, as we've learned this season, it's not the adversity that's important, it's the response to those circumstances that shapes your future.
 
Thankfully the COVID exposure was contained, so we were able to continue practicing. Our schedule changed, and our only choice was to turn our attention to what was coming next, which was a two-game series against Gardner-Webb. Like us, they were playing their best basketball of the season, meaning our preparation had to be on point. We spent hours scoring them to the finest detail, and when it came time to play, we executed our game plan and pulled out two tough victories that went down to the wire.
 
But our rollercoaster of a week had as many ups as it did downs. That first game against Gardner-Webb provided a highlight that the entire world would see, and it can be summed up in just two words: DeShaun Wade.
 
D-Wade, as we call him, has been a pleasure to play with since we both stepped foot on campus in June of 2019. Off the court, he is a fun, laid-back guy with a contagious laugh and a huge smile. On the court, he's the complete opposite. We refer to him as a "dog," as he possesses this killer mentality that helps take our team to another level. After playing in over 40 games alongside him, it didn't take long for me to realize that the first game against Gardner-Webb was going to be his night. He just could not miss, and every time the ball left his hands, we knew it was going in.
 
Except for that last shot…that last shot, I don't know if he even thought it was going in. 
 
Leading up to D Wade's game-winning moment, I had just tied the game up on a corner three-point shot with about 30 seconds left in the game. Gardner Webb immediately called a timeout. In that huddle, we spoke about one thing and one thing only: Getting a defensive stop. We had gotten stops all game, but none was bigger than this one. As the ball got taken out on the sideline, I screamed to my teammates "One Stop! One Stop!" We were able to force them into a tough shot, which led to a tipped ball by Juan Munoz that ended up in the hands of DeShaun.
 
Now, anyone watching the game on TV saw time on the clock and an open-court opportunity to get a quick score in transition, which would potentially seal the game. There was about 10 seconds left in the game, but DeShaun saw something else. 
 
The shot clock had not been reset from the prior possession, and the only thing that D Wade saw was the 3 seconds counting down on the shot clock above the backboard – which to him, in that chaotic situation, looked like a game clock about to expire.
 
Thinking the half was about to end, he took one dribble towards half court and heaved the basketball into the air off one leg. My first thought was, "Wow, no way did he just…" and in the middle of that thought – SWISH! The ball went in.
 
Now, normally any game-winner in sports calls for a huge celebration at the end. This one was a little different though, as nobody knew what to do, what to say, or how to react. Not even D Wade. I don't think anyone was in more disbelief than Coach Griff, who somewhat was lost for words in the next timeout. In the end, the shot counted, and we won by three. 
 
That next morning, the Longwood Lancers and Deshaun Wade went viral around the country. The shot came in at No. 1 on ESPN SportsCenter's Top 10 plays. It was an unforgettable moment, but we didn't have a lot of time to take it in because we had another game against Gardner-Webb to play the next day.
 
After that kind of ending, we knew Gardner-Webb was going to come at us with everything, and they did. This time there wasn't a buzzer-beater, but we pulled it out anyway. I am extremely proud of the team for being able to stay poised and focused on the task at hand in both of those games, even after how the week started.
 
We could have hung our heads after the Charleston Southern series got moved, could have complained that we didn't have enough time to prepare for Gardner-Webb, could have basked a little too long in the glory of our win in game one or the national attention we got from D Wade's shot. Instead, we responded to that adversity, finished the job and picked up two more wins to show for it.

More from Wilson
Blog #1: "Anything But Normal" (Jan. 29, 2021)
 
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