GAINESVILLE, Fla. --Â Enjoying its first three-game winning streak since Feb. 21-28 of last season, the Longwood women's basketball team meets Florida for the third time in history on Sunday at noon on the SEC Network.
STORYLINES
â–ª The contest is a homecoming of sorts for the Lancers' coaching and support staff. Head coach
Erika Lang-Montgomery played for the Gators from 1988-92, earning SEC All-Freshman Team honors in 1989. She returned to Gainesville as an assistant coach from 2019-22. Longwood director of basketball operations
Jazmyn Simmons is a two-time Florida graduate in 2022 and 2024. She worked the last two seasons as a graduate assistant for the Gators after being a student manager since 2019.
â–ª Longwood swept the Shirley Duncan Classic last Friday-Sunday at home, beating South Carolina State, William & Mary and McNeese by an average margin of 14.3 points. The Lancers need just two wins to match their season total of nine in each of the past two seasons.
â–ª Sophomore guard
Amor Harris was named Big South player of the Week Monday after earning MVP honors in the Shirley Duncan Classic. Harris averaged 17 points and 3.3 rebounds per game. Her 24 made field goals and 51 points scored in the tournament were the second and 10th most, respectively, in the NCAA for the week ending on Dec. 9.
â–ª Longwood is creating 26.64 turnovers per game, a figure that is fifth best in the NCAA. The Lancers have forced more turnovers than the opposition in nine-of-11 games this season, going 7-2 in those contests. Longwood also leads the Big South Conference in turnover margin at plus-7.55, which is 22nd in Division I.
SCOUTING THE GATORS
Florida enters Sunday 6-4 overall and riding a three-game winning streak of its own with victories over Hofstra last Monday, at Clemson Thursday and home against Marshall Sunday. Four Gators scored double figures in their 82-63 win versus the Thundering Herd with Ra Shaya Kyle posting her sixth double-double of the season on 16 points and 11 rebounds.
The Gators rank 10th in the NCAA in field goal percentage (49.9) and 23rd in scoring, averaging 82.2 points per game.
Under fourth-year head coach Kelly Rae Finley, Florida was picked ninth in the SEC preseason media poll and 14th by the league's coaches.
ALL-TIME SERIES AGAINST FLORIDA
The Gators hold a 2-0 lead in the all-time series with Longwood. Florida first topped the Lancers, 91-46, Nov. 17, 2014, at the O'Connell Center and then won, 71-54, on Nov. 10, 2019 with Longwood head coach
Erika Lang-Montgomery on the opposite sideline as an assistant coach for UF.
HIGH SCHOOL REUNION
Longwood assistant coach Landis McCoy and Florida director of basketball operations Serena Lamar went to Mainland High School in Daytona Beach at the same time, playing on the boy's and girl's basketball teams, respectively, from 2000-02.
REVISITING THE DUNCAN CLASSIC
Longwood won three games in three days last weekend in the Shirley Duncan Classic, the Lancers first home in-season tournament since 2010-11.
Amor Harris scored a career high 23 points on 10-for-19 shooting off the bench to lift the Lancers to a 67-60 win over South Carolina State in the opener.
Harris added a team-high 12 points Saturday as Longwood overcame a 10-point third-quarter deficit to beat William & Mary for the first time since 2013, 53-44.
Longwood then rolled to an 81-54 victory over McNeese Sunday, receiving 16 points, a career-high-tying nine steals to go with seven assists from
Kiki McIntyre.
Harris earned MVP honors while McIntyre and sophomore forward
Otaifo Esenabhalu – who recorded her fourth double-double of the season with 11 points and 11 rebounds against the Cowgirls – were named to the all-tournament team.
As a team, the Lancers caused 31.7 turnovers and tallied 18.3 steals per game in the tournament.
NCAA STEALS LEADER
Graduate guard
Kiki McIntyre is currently tied for the NCAA lead in total steals with Notre Dame's Hannah Hidalgo at 40 through games of Dec. 12. McIntyre is also sixth nationally in steals per game at 3.64.
She set a career high with nine steals in the win against South Carolina State Friday and matched it Sunday versus McNeese, falling just short of the single-game school record of 11 set by Brenda Fettrow Dec. 6, 1987 against William & Mary.
IF YOU BEAT 'EM, JOIN 'EM
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 a career-high 16 points versus South Carolina State Dec. 6, adding a career-best seven steals at Queens on Nov. 18.
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.
FIVE IN DOUBLE FIGURES
In the Lancers' 80-66 win at Queens Nov. 18, five different players landed in double digits. It marked the first time since Feb. 15, 2023, a 97-64 home win over USC Upstate.
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).
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.
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 26 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.
FIRST TO 10 WINS
The Longwood women's and men's basketball teams combined for a 10-4 record to start the season. Longwood was the first of 13 institutions in the state of Virginia that sponsors both sports to double-figure victories.
Norfolk State also started 10-4 with the Spartans' women's team collecting a 57-54 win at the SEC's Missouri on Nov. 10.
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 also 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 10-12 under Lang-Montgomery when they make at least five 3-pointers in a game.
REBOUNDING MACHINE
SophomoreÂ
Otaifo Esenabhalu is currently 12th in the NCAA in total rebounds with 105, 20th in offensive rebounds per game with 4.3 and 44th in rebounds per game at 9.5.
Esenabhalu leads the Big South Conference in those categories while also posting a league-leading seven double-figure rebounding games, including in four of the last five contests.
BAND OF THIEVES
Longwood made a season-high 23 steals in its 67-60 victory over South Carolina State Dec. 6. The Lancers have now secured at least 15 steals in a game 11 times under
Erika Lang-Montgomery. The Lancers are 10-1 in those contests. Longwood is averaging 14.5 steals per game this year, which is currently sixth in the NCAA.
With Kiki McInytre tied for the NCAA lead in total steals with 40,
Mariah Wilson is second in the Big South and tied for 13th in the country with 30 steals, while
Malea Brown is third in the league tied for 32nd nationally with 26 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 10 of the first 11 games of the season, at least eight players put their names in the scoring column.
In the Nov. 10 102-21 homecoming victory over Hood, 12 of the 13 players on the roster scored points.
BENCH PRODUCTION
Longwood outscored the opponent bench in 13 games in 2023-24 and has done so in 10 of the 11 games this season.
The Lancers posted an overwhelming 60-6 edge from its reserves – the largest margin of the season – as Longwood drubbed Hood, 102-21 on Nov. 10.
Longwood is averaging 33.9 bench points per game in 2024-25, good for 14th in NCAA Division I and second in the Big South.
CONSECUTIVE DOUBLE-DOUBLES
Otaifo Esenabhalu posted back-to-back double-doubles in the wins over Hood on Nov. 10 and at American on Nov. 13.
She 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 picked up her third double-double of the season with 12 points and 12 boards off the bench against Navy Nov. 23 and a fourth with 11 points and 11 rebounds against McNeese Dec. 8. She now has six in her career and is 28th in the NCAA in the category this season.
ULYSSE BIG SOUTH PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Sophomore forward
Frances Ulysse was named Big South Co-Player of the Week on Nov. 18. She averaged 12.5 points and 8.5 rebounds in a 1-1 week that featured Longwood's first win over American since the 2006-07 season.
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.
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