CHARLESTON, S.C. — When you're on the road in the Big South, you better come with your A game, no matter who you are playing.
 
For the second time this week, the Lancers came up just short on the road and fell to the blistering Charleston Southern Buccaneers, 89-85.
 
The game seemed like a repeat of Wednesday's tilt against Gardner-Webb: a frisky opponent uncharacteristically shooting lights-out on their home court and a Longwood (16-8, 5-4 Big South) squad that let a slim second-half lead slip away in the closing minutes.

"Another tough outing for the Lancers," said Longwood Head Coach Griff Aldrich. "We are not competing and playing with the toughness and grit that is required to win on teh road at this time. That is on me, and we will fix it during the bye week. But we have to get back to Longwood Basketball and hitting our standard, which we are not doing at this time. There is a lot of good basketball left, and this team has it in them, but we need to find that consistency of effort, focus and toughness to win in this conference."
 
All nine Lancers who saw minutes contributed to their point total, led by Kyrell Luc and Jaylen Benard, who scored 14 apiece. Elijah Tucker and Michael Christmas each contributed eleven. Angelo Brizzi whirled around the court, at times everywhere all at once, for nine points. Johan Nziemi had 8.
 
Now the Lancers can look forward to a rare February Wednesday off and a return to the friendly confines of the Joan Perry Brock Center, where the loud and proud home crowd has propelled them to an 11-1 record on the season. They'll play in-state foe Radford University in front of a packed crowd decked in blue-and-white.
 
The Buccaneers' Lamar Oden Jr. exploded out of the gates with the first eleven points for Charleston Southern (8-16, 4-5 Big South) as the home team jumped out to an 11-2 lead early on. Longwood's answer: get everyone involved and run the floor. Tied at halftime, the Lancers went back-and-forth with the home team for the second straight game but could not overcome the scorching shooting of the Buccaneers, who shot better than 55 percent from the floor and 45 percent from behind the arc.
 
Longwood will spend the week preparing for another tough conference foe, Radford, on Saturday, Feb. 8. Tip at 3 p.m. in the Joan Perry Brock Center.

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