FARMVILLE, Va. -- The Longwood women's basketball team will entertain one of the two remaining unbeaten teams in the Big South Conference when USC Upstate comes to the Joan Perry Brock Center Wednesday at 7 p.m. Corey Hodges and Justin Dalton are set to call the action on ESPN+.
STORYLINES
â–ª Wednesday marks the 22nd meeting between Longwood and USC Upstate, dating to a 68-57 Spartans' victory Feb. 9, 1980 in Rock Hill, S.C. USC Upstate holds a 11-10 overall edge in the series, but the Lancers have a 6-3 advantage in Farmville. LU posted its largest victory in the series, 97-64, last year on Feb. 15, 2023.
â–ª Through four conference games,
Kiki McIntyre leads the Big South in steals per game in league games, averaging 3.3 thefts. She is also 10th in free throw percentage (73.3) with
Janay Turner (70.6) 11th. Turner is also 10th in both points per game (12.0) and 3-pointers made per game (1.5).
Otaifo Esenabhalu sits fourth in offensive rebounds per game (3.0) and sixth in rebounding (7.0). Esenabhalu and
Laney Bone are tied for eighth with 0.5 blocks per game.
â–ª Four Longwood players scored double figures Saturday against UNC Asheville. It marked the first time this season and fourth in head coach
Erika Lang-Montgomery's tenure at least four players scored 10-plus points in a game. Five Lancers scored double digits in last season's 97-64 win over USC Upstate Feb. 15, 2023, and just three days later, LU placed four in double figures in a 65-63 win at Radford.
â–ª Anne-Hamilton LeRoy is currently 38th all-time in the Big South in scoring with 1,368 points and is one of just 141 players in league history to score 1,000 career points. LeRoy is 10th all-time in scoring at Longwood. She is also fourth all-time in the Big South in games played with 135 and made her 100th career start last Wednesday at Radford.
SCOUTING THE SPARTANS
USC Upstate comes into play Wednesday at 8-8 overall and tied atop the Big South Conference standings with Radford at 3-0. The Spartans – up 10 points entering the fourth quarter – held off a late charge from Charleston Southern for a 59-58 win at home Saturday to remain ubeaten in the league. Rebekah Gordon paced Upsate with 16 points and eight rebounds, adding four steals.
Isabell West leads the team averaging 10.8 points and 6.2 rebounds in 16 games off the bench. As a group, Upstate is tops in the Big South in field goal percentage (39.2), free throw percentage (73.5) and free throws made per game (13.00).
LAST TIME OUT
Four Longwood players scored double figures, but a fourth-quarter comeback fell short as UNC Asheville claimed a 69-61 Big South Conference victory at the Joan Perry Brock Center Saturday.
Longwood bounced back from a slow start, using a 10-0 spurt to open the fourth to get back into the game. LU cut its deficit to 55-49 with 5:06 to play when Otaifo Esenabhalu gathered the rebound of an Adriana Shipp-Davis shot and put it up and in. UNC Asheville, though, scored the next four points, restoring a double-digit advantage over the next minute and a half and went on to earn the win.
Esenabhalu scored all of her career-high 10 points in the final period, adding eight boards, while Kiki McIntyre led the Lancers with 14 points on 5-of-12 shooting for her second double-figure outing in three games. Janay Turner and Malea Brown tallied 11 points each.
TOUGH NON-CONFERENCE SLATE
Longwood's non-conference slate was set up to be a challenge and it proved to be. The 10 non-league teams who defeated the Lancers this season own a combined record of 99-60 (.623), as of Tuesday.
LANCERS FOURTH IN BIG SOUTH POLL
Longwood was picked fourth in the 2023-24 Big South preseason poll, announced at the conference media day in Concord, N.C., on Oct. 17. The fourth-place tag marks the Lancers' second-highest predicted finish since joining the league for the 2012-13 season.
High Point was chosen first with eight first-place votes and 80 total points, followed by Presbyterian and Radford in a tie for second with 61 points. The Blue Hose earned the final nod for the top spot in the poll.
TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER
Fifth-year guard Anne-Hamilton LeRoy is among the NCAA's active career leaders in several statistical categories. Those are: games played (135, 38th in Division I, 41st in all NCAA divisions), points (1,368, 100th in Division I, 167th in all divisions), free throws made (367, 35th in Division I) and free throws attempted (482, 37th in Division I).
OTAIFO EARNS BIG SOUTH HONOR
Freshman forward Otaifo Esenabhalu earned Big South Freshman of the Week Nov. 20 after averaging three points and 8.5 rebounds at James Madison and Clemson. She tallied career highs of 15 rebounds and three blocks against JMU.
BACK FOR MORE
Among the Lancers' four returning starters are 2023 All-South second-team selections Adriana Shipp-Davis and Anne-Hamilton LeRoy. Shipp-Davis is a preseason All-Big South first teamer this year after ranking fourth in the Big South in scoring at 13.9 points per game, while LeRoy earned a spot on the preseason second team following a season that saw her seventh in scoring (13.4).
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE BENCH
Longwood's non-starters are averaging 21.8 points per game, a figure that is third in the Big South and 102nd overall in Division I. UNC Asheville leads the league in the category at 28.5 points per game.
Longwood has outscored the opponent bench against Chowan Nov. 12, at Stony Brook Dec. 11, at Charleston Southern Jan. 6 and versus Asheville Saturday.
HOME, SWEET HOME
Longwood opened its home slate Nov. 12 with an 88-59 victory over NCAA Division II Chowan on Homecoming and Alumni Weekend. The game was the first in women's basketball at the new Joan Perry Brock Center, made possible by an initial $15 million gift from Brock, a 1964 alumna and philanthropist. Prior to moving next door to the JPB, the Lancers competed in Willett Hall, opened in 1980, compiling a 312-202 (.607) record in the building since the 1981-82 season.
POUTINE, PLEASE
Hailing from Montréal, Québec, freshman forward Frances Ulysse is the first player from north of the border to suit up for Longwood in its Division I history, which began in 2004-05. Ulysse averaged 15.2 points and 9.2 rebounds in 2022-23 at Vanier College, earning regional all-star honors.
Since the 2010-11 season, only eight other foreign-born student-athletes have played for the Lancers. They are: Mina Jovanovic, of Smederevska Palanka, Serbia, from 2010-12, Mieke Elkington, of Hamilton, New Zealand, from 2011-13, Jovana Vukovic, of Bar, Montenegro, in 2016-17, Rosemary Ilang, of Abuja, Nigeria, from 2017-19, Kristina Antonenko, of Moscow, Russia, from 2017-19, Milou Vennema, of Groningen, Netherlands, from 2018-23, Andrijana Reljic, of Sarajevo, Bosnia, from 2019-21 and Geassy Germano, of São Paulo, Brazil, from 2021-23.
RECORD BOOK TALK
Fifth-year guard Anne-Hamilton LeRoy, the newly minted school-record holder in career made free throws (367), is also eighth in free-throw percentage (76.1) and 10th in career points (1,368).
Additionally, senior guard Janay Turner turned in the seventh best single-season mark for free-throw percentage in 2022-23, hitting 83.6 (92-of-110) of her freebies in her first season in Farmville. Turner's mark ranked 69th in the NCAA a season ago.
NEXT TO 1,000?
Redshirt senior guard Adriana Shipp-Davis comes into play needing 91 points to reach the 1,000-point milestone for her career. The 2023 Preseason All-Big South First Team honoree posted 21 double-figure scoring games, including seven with 20-plus points, last season. She has scored in double digits 42 times in her career, leading the Lancers to an 18-24 record in those games. When Shipp-Davis goes for 20 or more, which she's done nine times, Longwood has played to a 4-5 record.
Shipp-Davis turned in a career high of 26 points in a 75-65 victory over UNC Asheville on Jan. 11, 2023 while shooting 9-for-14 from the field that day.
CENTURY MARK
Fifth-year guard Anne-Hamilton LeRoy hit her 100th career 3-pointer late in the fourth quarter against Georgia Southern Dec. 22, finishing 2-for-5 from distance on the day. In 135 games and 101 starts, the Seneca, S.C., native is 101-for-343 from 3-point range, good for 29.4 percent.
DOUBLE DOUBLE
With 20 points and 15 rebounds versus Norfolk State Dec. 31, Adriana Shipp-Davis tallied the 13th double-double in the Big South this season and first for Longwood. She is one of 10 players in the league to achieve the feat this season.
NOTING THE WIN AT OHIO
Longwood's 75-72 victory at Ohio Nov. 29 was its first non-league true road win since beating Lamar, 62-59, in Beaumont, Texas, on Nov. 28, 2021.
Longwood grabbed a season-high 51 rebounds against the Bobcats, marking the most since collecting 54 against Hampton March 3, 2022, a 70-61 win in the Big South quarterfinals.
SHOOTING TRENDS
Longwood earned its first Big South win of the season last Saturday, 66-57, at Charleston Southern while shooting 46 percent (23-for-50) as a team. The Lancers limited CSU to 34.4 percent in the win, as well, and are now to 8-3 overall under head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery and 3-3 in 2023-24 when outshooting the opposition.
SHUFFLING THE DECK
Longwood has employed five different starting lineups in 16 games so far this season. Two different five-player groups – Kiki McIntyre, Anne-Hamilton LeRoy, Janay Turner, Fances Ulysse and Adriana Shipp-Davis and Malea Brown, LeRoy, Turner, Otaifo Esenabhalu and Laney Bone – have started five times each. LeRoy and Turner have started in all 16 games while Brown has 11 starts, Ulysse 10 and Esenabhalu eight.
CONTROLLING THE BOARDS
Longwood has played to a 6-3 record when it outrebounds its opponent in two seasons under head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery. The Lancers are 3-1 when doing so this season with a combined plus-27 rebounding margin in their three victories.
SHIPP-DAVIS SPARKS LANCERS
Redshirt senior guard Adriana Shipp-Davis made her first start of the season Dec. 17 at William & Mary and responded well. The Chesapeake, Va., native led the Lancers in scoring with 12 points and grabbed three rebounds in 21 minutes of action. She was 4-for-10 from the field, including going a season-best 3-for-5 from 3-point range in what was the 52nd start of her career. Shipp-Davis has scored double figures in seven of 16 games this season, including five of the last nine.
SECOND IN LEAGUE IN SCORING
Longwood is second in the Big South in scoring average at 60.9 points per game, which is 259th in the nation.
20-POINT SCORERS
Redshirt senior guard Adriana Shipp-Davis scored a season-high 20 points against Norfolk State Dec. 31 to become the fourth Longwood player to score at least that many points in a game this season. She joined Anne-Hamilton LeRoy (23 Dec. 22 versus Georgia Southern), Janay Turner (career-high 22 Nov. 29 at Ohio) and Malea Brown (20 Nov. 12 versus Chowan).
This season, there have been 46 games in which a player has scored at least 20 points in the Big South from 20 different individuals.
FREE THROWS WIN BALLGAMES
The Lancers lead the league in free throw attempts (18.25), which is 107th best in the country. Longwood is second in the Big South in free throws made per game at 12.56, a figure that is 125th in the nation. The Lancers are fifth in the league in free throw percentage (68.8), which is 223rd nationally.
Individually, Janay Turner ranks fourth in the league in both free throws attempted (79, 90th in Division I) and free throws made (59, 92nd in Division I). She is sixth in free throw percentage (74.7, 232nd in Division I).
LU AMONG LEADERS IN STEALS
As a team, the Lancers are second in the Big South in steals per game (10.7), which is 36th in the nation.
Junior guard Kiki McIntyre is second in steals (34) and steals per game (2.13), good for 97th and 99th in Division I, respectively. Fellow junior guard Malea Brown ranks fourth in the league and 175th nationally in steals per game at 1.88.
TURNER FROM DOWNTOWN
On the heels of shooting a career-best 5-for-5 from 3-point range in the 88-59 win over Chowan Nov. 12, Janay Turner is shooting 36.8 percent (25-for-68) from distance.
As a team, the Lancers are seventh in the Big South in 3-point field goal percentage at 29.1 percent, good for 237th in the country.
OTAIFO ON THE GLASS
Freshman forward Otaifo Esenabhalu has made an impact on the boards for the Lancers this season. She leads Longwood with 5.6 rebounds per game through 16 games.
Esenabhalu is one of just five players in the Big South to secure 15 or more boards in a game this season when she grabbed that many at James Madison on Nov. 15. Adriana Shipp-Davis also pulled down 15 Dec. 31 against Norfolk State, tying her career high.
THE ROAD GOES ON FOREVER
Longwood concluded the second-longest road trip in Division I women's basketball Dec. 17 at William & Mary. The Lancers played seven consecutive games away from the Joan Perry Brock Center, traveling approximately 4,534 miles in that span.
Middle Tennessee completed an eight-game trip from Nov. 18-Dec. 10, traversing four states and the Bahamas in 35 days, playing to a 6-2 record.
