BUIES CREEK, N.C. – Need resilience? Check with Longwood men's basketball. They've got it in spades.
 
This time, the Lancers (23-6, 15-1 Big South) shook off a poor shooting first half to rally past Campbell 60-55 behind a barrage of open three's. The result? Longwood claimed the overall conference crown for the first time after locking up the Big South North Division last week, both program firsts.
 
The win, coupled with the Longwood women's basketball win over Hampton earlier in the day, marks the seventh time in Big South history that a school has had both its men's and women's teams win at least a share of the Big South title.
 
"I'm just extremely proud of them. 15-1, I don't care if you're playing in the men's league at Prince Edward High School, that's hard to do," said Longwood head coach Griff Aldrich. "The reality is, the Big South is stronger this year than it normally is. It is quite an accomplishment to go 15-1, but to do it on a year where the conference is, on a relative basis, stronger than it typically has been, is even more impressive. I'm just super proud of the guys.
 
"I get asked a lot about why I think we've had the success we've had. There's good players and things of that nature, which is absolutely true, but something has to be different in order to go 15-1. What we have that's uncommon is unselfishness."
 
DeShaun Wade led the way for the Lancer men, draining six of the team's 10 three's on the way to a game-high 20 points. He ripped off five straight points in the first two minutes of the second half, and Longwood used a 9-0 run to erase a four-point Campbell lead.
 
The Lancer defense did the dirty work as well. Longwood held Campbell (15-12, 8-8 Big South) scoreless for three separate three minute stretches in the final 20 minutes and came up with critical stops whenever Campbell made a late run.
 
"I thought we were very solid defensively. I thought it was really hard for them to score," said Aldrich after holding Campbell to 10 points below its season average. "We forced several shot clock violations and more than a few end-of-the-shot clock situations where they had to make a tough play. I think that in large part was due to the activity and aggressiveness. I think we saw a lot more of that from Longwood that we haven't seen in a couple of weeks."
 
Those stops seemed to turn into huge shots for Longwood in a game that neither side ever led by more than nine. Wade provided plenty of them, with 14 points on 5-6 shooting from the floor in the second half, but he wasn't alone.
 
Justin Hill tallied 12 of his 16 points after halftime, and Isaiah Wilkins had yet another dagger three to beat the shot clock with 52 seconds to play off a Hill pass.
 
Campbell had one last gasp to trim the Lancer lead to two after Cedric Henderson and Messiah Thompson hit a two and a three, respectively, but the defense held firm and forced a couple of misses in the final 30 seconds to secure the win. Thompson led Campbell with 16 points, and Henderson added 14.
 
Longwood heads into the 2022 Hercules Tires Big South Championship Tournament as the top overall seed, and they will play in the quarterfinals on Friday, March 4. The Lancers have clinched a first round bye, with the first round games beginning on Wednesday, March 2.
 
"The next couple of days are going to be off. There's a physical fatigue, but there's also a mental fatigue. We need to be able to catch our breath and reset mentally," Aldrich said. "We're going to have a couple of days, since we won't know who we play until the 8/9 game's played on Wednesday, to work on us which is what we need to get better at anyway. Then we'll be ready to go on Friday."
 
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