ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- The Longwood women's basketball team heads to UNC Asheville Wednesday for a game between two teams which are seventh and eighth in the Big South Conference standings, respectively. Tip at Kimmel Arena is slated for 6:30 p.m., and Allen Ellis and John Williams will have the call on ESPN+.
STORYLINES
▪ Wednesday marks the 30th all-time meeting between Longwood and UNC Asheville, dating to a 66-50 Bulldogs' victory on Feb. 22, 2005 in Asheville. UNCA holds a 16-13 edge in the series and is 9-5 in Asheville. The Bulldogs ended a six-game Longwood winning streak in the series when teams met Jan. 13 at the Joan Perry Brock Center in Farmville. The Bulldogs won that contest, 69-61, despite four Lancers scoring in double figures.
▪ Having secured her 500th career rebound Feb. 10 at Winthrop,
Adriana Shipp-Davis became the 142nd in league history to score 1,000 points Saturday against Presbyterian. She is the 135th player in Big South history to collect 500 rebounds and is the 80th player in the Big South to join the 1,000-point/500-rebound club. Shipp-Davis currently has 1,005 points and 505 rebounds in 114 career games played, including 67 starts.
▪ Anne-Hamilton LeRoy, who
returned from a five-game absence due to illness Saturday against Presbyterian to score eight points in 26 minutes off the bench,
is currently 34th all-time in the Big South in scoring with 1,414 points. She passed UNC Asheville's Shonese Jones (1,411 points from 2011-15) versus PC and is one of 142 players in league history to score 1,000 career points. LeRoy is eighth all-time in scoring at Longwood. She is also fourth all-time in the Big South in games played with 139, making her 100th start Jan. 10 at Radford.
▪ Longwood ranks 22nd in the NCAA in steals per game, averaging 11.0 per game. The Lancers swiped a season-high 20 in a 103-52 win against Regent on Jan. 27.
SCOUTING THE BULLDOGS
UNC Asheville is 10-16 overall and 4-9 in the Big South Conference, directly above Longwood in the standings. The Bulldogs are coming off of a 68-63 home win over Charleston Southern on Saturday that snapped a four-game losing streak.
McKinley Brooks-Sumpter leads the Bulldogs, averaging 14.0 points and 6.9 rebounds per game, numbers that are both fifth best in the league. LaImani Simmons and Big South Player of the Week Mallory Bruce also average double-digit points at 11.3 and 10.4 points per game.
UNCA leads the league in six statistical categories, including field goal percentage defense (37.6), offensive rebounds per game (13.2), scoring defense (58.9 points per game), scoring margin (0.1), 3-point percentage defense (29.2) and turnover margin (1.15).
LAST TIME OUT
Presbyterian shot 50 percent from the field and received 20 points from Tilda Sjökvist in a 67-52 over Longwood Saturday in Farmville.
The Blue Hose connected on 25 of their 50 shots on the day, including going 12-for-23 in the opening 20 minutes. Kiki McIntyre paced the Lancers with 12 points, adding two assists.
Presbyterian went 7-for-18 from 3-point range, draining six of those in the second half.
Adriana Shipp-Davis scored nine points, hitting 1,000 with 6:50 remaining in the first quarter.
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.
REPEAT WEEKLY HONORS
Forward Otaifo Esenabhalu recorded her first career double-double against Regent Jan. 27 with a career-high 16 points and 15 rebounds. She averaged 11 points and 13 rebounds in two games to earn Big South Freshman of the Week honors on Jan. 29. It was the second time Esenabhalu won the award, also doing so on Nov. 20.
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 (139, 67th in Division I, 74th in all NCAA divisions), points (1,414, 116th in Division I, 213th in all divisions), free throws made (377, 42nd in Division I) and free throws attempted (494, 43rd in Division I).
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 147-102 (.590), as of Tuesday.
CRASHIN' THE BOARDS
Freshman forward Otaifo Esenabhalu has grabbed at least eight rebounds per game in seven of the last 15 games, dating to Dec. 22 against Georgia Southern when she collected eight. Esenabhalu is averaging 6.6 boards in that span, with an average of 6.3 in 12 Big South Conference games to rank sixth in the league. She is sixth in offensive (2.5) and tied for 12th in defensive (3.8) rebounds.
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE BENCH
Longwood's non-starters are averaging 19.8 points per game, a figure that is fourth in the Big South and 122nd overall in Division I.
Longwood has outscored the opponent bench in nine games this season, including getting a season-high 40 points from its reserves Jan. 27 against Regent.
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 (377), is also eighth in free-throw percentage (76.3) and eighth in points (1,414).
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.
SO YOU WANT TO BE A COACH
Fifth-year guard Anne-Hamilton LeRoy and graduate assistant coach Mikayla Kinnard have been selected for the WBCA's 21st "So You Want To Be A Coach" class, announced Feb. 7. The pair is part of a 55-member group.
Longwood is one of two Division I schools with two participants, joining DePaul. The program increases understanding and skills necessary to earn coaching positions, increases understanding and awareness of competencies for success in coaching, introduces players to coaches and administrators and raises awareness of the existing talent pool of players who want to coach.
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 139 games and 104 starts, the Seneca, S.C., native is 101-for-344 from 3-point range, good for 29.4 percent.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
Laney Bone scored 13 points and grabbed 10 rebounds against Winthrop last Saturday to secure the Lancers third double-double of the season. Only 18 players in the Big South have recorded a double-double this year.
TRUE ROAD WIN
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.
BIG DAY AGAINST REGENT
Longwood closed its non-conference slate last Saturday with a 103-52 victory over Regent. It marked the most points the Lancers scored since Dec. 12, 2015 in a 100-57 win against North Carolina Wesleyan. LU shot 60.3 percent from the field, setting season highs in rebounds (52), assists (27) and steals (20).
Four players scored in double digits for the third time in four games against the Royals, while all 12 active players scored points.
Longwood tied the school record for points in a quarter, scoring 40 in the fourth. LU also scored 40 in the third period of a 91-59 home win against Charleston Southern Feb. 2, 2022.
SHOOTING TRENDS
The Lancers shot 60.3 percent and limited Regent to 27.8 percent Jan. 27 and are now to 11-5 overall under head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery and 6-5 in 2023-24 when outshooting the opposition. It was the third time the Lancers shot 50 percent or better with Lang-Montgomery at the helm, also doing so against USC Upstate on Feb. 15, 2023 (52.3 percent) and at Presbyterian on Jan. 20 (50 percent).
SHUFFLING THE DECK
Longwood has employed seven different starting lineups in 25 games so far this season. The five-player group of Kiki McIntyre, Anne-Hamilton LeRoy, Janay Turner, Frances Ulysse and Adriana Shipp-Davis started a team-high eight consecutive games from Dec. 31-Jan. 24 and are 2-6 together.
Turner has started 22-of-25 games, while LeRoy and Ulysse have 19 starts each.
CONTROLLING THE BOARDS
Longwood has played to a 8-6 record when outrebounding its opponent in two seasons under head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery. The Lancers are 5-4 when doing so this season with a combined plus-56 rebounding margin in their six victories.
LU THIRD IN SCORING
Longwood is third in the Big South in scoring average at 61.4 points per game, which is 246th in the nation.
20-POINT SCORERS
There have been 75 games in which a player has scored at least 20 points in the Big South from 25 different players.
FREE THROWS WIN BALLGAMES
The Lancers lead the league in free throw attempts (17.6), which is 130th in the country. Longwood is third in the Big South in free throws made per game at 11.92, a figure that is 158th in the nation. The Lancers are eighth in the league in free throw percentage (67.7), which is 273rd nationally.
LANCERS LEAD LEAGUE IN STEALS
As a team, the Lancers lead the Big South in steals per game (11.0), which is 22nd in the nation.
Junior guard Kiki McIntyre leads the league in both steals (63, 30th in Division I) and steals per game (2.52, 35th in Division I). Fellow junior guard Malea Brown ranks third in the league and 103rd nationally in steals at 51. Brown is also third in the Big South in steals per game at 2.04, good for 117th in the nation.
TURNER FROM DOWNTOWN
Janay Turner went 5-for-7 from 3-point range in the Jan. 17 win over USC Upstate, matching her career high for 3-point makes in a game, and is shooting 37.5 percent (36-for-96) from distance on the year.
As a team, the Lancers are sixth in the league in 3-point field goal percentage at 29.6 percent, which is 228th nationally.
OTAIFO ON THE GLASS
Freshman forward Otaifo Esenabhalu has made an impact on the boards for the Lancers this season. She leads Longwood with 6.1 rebounds per game through 25 games.
Esenabhalu is one of just seven 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, repeating the performance with 15 Jan. 27 against Regent. 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.
