CHARLOTTE, N.C. --Â The Longwood women's basketball team, playing its second game on the road in three days, faces Queens Monday as the teams renew a rivalry dating back to their Division II days. Tip time is 7 p.m., at Curry Arena.
STORYLINES
â–ª Monday's matchup is the first between the two since the 2003-04 season when they were each part of the Carolinas-Virginia Athletic Conference. Legendary head coach Shirley Duncan's Lancers won the game, 71-60, on Jan. 5, 2004 at Willett Hall in Farmville behind double-doubles from Marita Meldere (25 points, 15 rebounds), Catherine Dunn (17 points, 11 rebounds) and Ebony Smith (14 points, 13 rebounds).
â–ª Longwood holds an 18-14 advantage in the all-time series with the Royals, which began with a pair of Lancers' victories in the 1989-90 season. The Lancers have won the last five, with the last Queens victory coming Jan. 10, 2002 in Farmville by a 70-60 count.
â–ª Longwood leads the Big South in no fewer than 11 statistical categories as a team. Some of them include: scoring offense (73.6 points per game), defense (54.2) and scoring margin (plus-19.4).
â–ª Longwood has played lockdown defense to start the year, forcing 28.2 turnovers per game, a figure that is 12th best in the NCAA. The Lancers have forced more turnovers than the opposition in four of the five games so far this season and are 3-1 in those contests. Longwood created a season-high 40 turnovers in the 102-21 homecoming win over Hood on Nov. 10, leading to 43 points. Longwood leads the Big South in turnover margin at plus-7.8, which is 44th in Division I.
SCOUTING THE ROYALS
Queens, in its third year of a four-year process reclassifying from NCAA Division II to the Atlantic Sun Conference, enters play 1-3 on the year. The Royals are coming off of a 69-52 home loss to Winthrop last Wednesday.
Aylesha Wade paced Queens with 15 points, while Jordyn Weaver had a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds in the loss.
Weaver leads the team in scoring and rebounding, averaging 11.7 points and 5.7 rebounds per game. She is also shooting a team-leading 51.7 percent from the floor.
Under fifth-year head coach Jen Brown, Queens, which is eligible for A-Sun postseason play, was picked to finish 11th in the 12-team league in the coaches' poll.
LAST TIME OUT
 Longwood overcame a 13-point third-quarter deficit against Georgia Southern on Saturday, taking a one-point lead at the beginning of fourth, but the Eagles rallied to sneak away with a 68-64 win.
JaMya Robinson hit a pull-up jumper with 1:21 to play to make it a two-point game but GSU's Paris Gaines dropped in a layup and drew contact, knocking down the ensuring free throw, to give her team a two-possession lead at 66-61.
LANCERS SEVENTH IN BIG SOUTH POLL
Longwood was picked seventh in the 2024-25 Big South preseason poll. The Lancers earned 30 points in the poll, ahead of Presbyterian (23 points) and UNC Asheville (17).
For the fourth consecutive season and fifth time overall, High Point was chosen first with five first-place votes and 76 total points, followed by Radford with 57 points and one first-place nod and Charleston Southern with 55 points. Winthrop in fourth, Gardner-Webb in sixth and the Blue Hose in eighth received the remaining first-place votes.
IF YOU BEAT 'EM, JOIN 'EM
Senior guard
Mariah Wilson transferred to Longwood after playing her first three seasons and 60 career games at Towson from 2021-24. Wilson averaged 1.5 points and 0.6 rebounds per game in 5.8 minutes for the Tigers.
When head coach
Erika Lang-Montgomery brought her team to TU Arena Nov. 12, 2022, Wilson played three minutes in an 83-72 Towson victory.
Wilson scored 11 points each in her first two games with the Lancers after only tallying double digits two times at Towson.
LUCKY 7
The Lancers will play half of their 14 non-conference games in the friendly confines of the Joan Perry Brock Center this season. That reflects a stark contrast from 2023-24 in which Longwood played seven consecutive non-league games away from Farmville from Nov. 15 at James Madison to Dec. 17 at William & Mary, traveling approximately 4,534 miles in that span.
SHIRLEY DUNCAN CLASSIC
The Lancers are set to host their first in-season tournament since the 2010-11 season when South Carolina State, McNeese and William & Mary join Longwood in Farmville for the Shirley Duncan Classic on Dec. 6-8.
The event is named in honor of Shirley Duncan, the all-time winningest coach in Longwood women's basketball history. A 2016 Longwood athletics hall of fame inductee, and one of four associated with the women's basketball program to be part of the hall of fame, Duncan led the Lancers to a 355-263 (.575) record from 1983-05 with four NCAA Division II tournament appearances.
LET'S PLAY TWO!
Longwood freshman forward
Montgomery Bedford, a 6-foot-2 native of Baltimore, Md., and product of Baltimore City College, who was recruited to Farmville to play women's lacrosse for the Lancers, walked onto the women's basketball team this fall. Bedford is believed to be one of just four dual-sport student-athletes on Division I women's basketball rosters this season.
The others are Santa Clara forward Lauren Glover, who also plays for the Broncos' women's volleyball team; Cincinnati guard Daylee Dunn, also a member of the Bearcats' track and field team and Cal State Fullerton guard/forward Samantha Schuler, who is also on the Titans' track and field team.
Bedford is the first two-sport student-athlete to play women's basketball at Longwood since Mallory Odell did it from 2017-21, also playing for the softball team.
MS. 1,000
Longwood graduate student point guard Kiki McInytre needs 87 points to reach 1,000 for her career. The Boston native averaged 6.6 points per game last season, appearing in all 30 contests. She averaged 10.9 points per game in 61 games playing at NCAA Division II St Leo, scoring 663 points from 2020-23.
REINSON ON THE CALL
Former Longwood women's basketball head coach Bill Reinson, who coached the Lancers for parts of eight seasons from 2010-18, winning 58 games, returns to Farmville to join the "Voice of the Lancers" Sam Hovan on the call of selected home ESPN+ broadcasts from the Joan Perry Brock Center in 2024-25.
STUDENT-ATHLETES
No fewer than 10 Longwood women's basketball student-athletes were named to the 2023-24 Big South Presidential Honor Roll in June. To be included on the list, student-athletes must maintain at least a 3.0 grade-point average (on a 4.0 scale) for the academic year.
The players who achieved the feat were Lainey Bone,
Malea Brown,
Stephanie Davis,
Otaifo Esenabhalu,
Amor Harris,
Kiki McIntyre,
Nalani Simmons,
Janay Turner Frances Ulysse and
Bailey Williams.
Additionally, the Lancers earned their highest semester team grade-point average in history at 3.42 in the spring with McIntyre, Simmons and Turner collecting perfect 4.0 GPAs for the term.
STUDENT-ATHLETES, PART II
Kiki McIntyre and
Bailey Williams were named to the 2023-24 College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team®. To be eligible, student-athletes must have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.5 and be starter or key contributor to their team.
THREE'S COMPANY
The Lancers went 9-for-27 (33.3 percent) from 3-point range against Hood Nov. 10. It marked the the second time this season and fourth in head coach
Erika Lang-Montgomery's Longwood tenure that the Lancers made that many from distance.
The Lancers went 9-for-20 (45 percent) at Norfolk State on Nov. 7.
Longwood buried 10 from downtown in an 88-59 homecoming win over Chowan Nov. 12, 2023 and nine more in a 77-64 loss at Presbyterian on Feb. 8, 2023.
The Lancers are 8-11 under Lang-Montgomery when they make at least five 3-pointers in a game.
BACK TO WHERE IT BEGAN
The Lancers will take a trip to Gainesville, Fla., on Dec. 15 to clash with the Florida Gators. The matchup represents a homecoming for head coach
Erika Lang-Montgomery, a 1995 Florida graduate and 1989 SEC All-Freshman Team selection.
Following her time as head coach at Flagler, Lang-Montgomery returned to Florida as an assistant coach from 2019-22 on the staffs of Cam Newbauer (2019-21) and Kelly Rae Finley (2021-22), respectively.
BAND OF THIEVES
Longwood made 16 steals in its 59-41 victory at American last Wednesday. It was the ninth time under
Erika Lang-Montgomery that the team had at least 15 steals in a game. The Lancers are 8-1 in those contests. Longwood is averaging 15.0 steals per game this year, which is currently 16th in the NCAA.
Individually,
Malea Brown and Kiki McInytre are tied for 12th nationally with 14 total steals.
Longwood led the Big South and finished 21st in the country in steals per game at 10.7 last season. McIntyre led the league at 2.77 per game, good for 20th in the NCAA, while she collected 83 total steals, which also led the league and was 29th in the country.
SPREADING THE LOVE
In the first five games of the season, at least eight players put their names in the scoring column. Against Lincoln (Pa.) Nov. 4, all nine players to see the court scored. On Nov. 7, at Norfolk State, 10 of the 11 players to appear in the contest tallied points. In Nov. 10's 102-21 homecoming victory over Hood, 12 of the 13 players on the roster scored and in the Nov. 13 win at American, eight players scored with only one in double figures. Finally, all 10 players Saturday at Georgia Southern scored.
BENCH PRODUCTION
Longwood outscored the opponent bench in 13 games in 2023-24 and has done so in all five games this season.
The Lancers posted an overwhelming 60-6 edge from its reserves as the Lancers drubbed Hood, 102-21.
Longwood is averaging 38 bench points per game in 2024-25, good for 13th in NCAA Division I and first in the Big South.
CONSECUTIVE DOUBLE-DOUBLES
SophomoreÂ
Otaifo Esenabhalu posted back-to-back double-doubles in the wins over Hood On Nov. 10 and at American on Nov. 13.
The Valdosta, Ga., native tallied 12 points and 13 rebounds against the Blazers and game highs of 10 points and 13 boards versus the Eagles.
They were the first consecutive double-doubles for a Longwood player since Akila Smith accomplished the feat on two separate occasions in the Lancers' Big South championship season of 2021-22. Smith last did it at North Carolina A&T (Dec. 29, 2021 and Presbyterian (Jan. 1, 2022), both Longwood victories.
Esenabhalu has four career double-doubles and her two this season are the 11th most in the NCAA.
MATCHING BEST D-I START
The Lancers won three of their first four games for only the third time in their Division I history.
Longwood won its first three games of the 2006-07 season, beating American, Norfolk State and North Florida, before falling at William & Mary that year.
 In 2013-14, the Lancers dropped the opener at Seton Hall before defeating William & Mary, Utah Valley and Xavier.
WINNING THE FIRST ONE
The Lancers' season-opening 81-70 win against Lincoln (Pa.) on Nov. 4 at the Joan Perry Brock Center marked Longwood's first victory to begin a season since defeating Campbell, 71-48, in the Lancer Classic at Willett Hall on Nov. 12, 2010.
Â
