FARMVILLE, Va. – It's only been four seasons, but the college coaching career of Longwood head coach Griff Aldrich has been a charmed one.
 
In year one, he helped his mentor Tony Shaver lead his alma mater, Hampden-Sydney, to a No. 1 national ranking at the Division III level. After a 20-year break to pursue his law degree and a lucrative career in the private sector, he then joined his former college teammate Ryan Odom at UMBC where the two celebrated courtside one year later when the Retrievers won the 2018 America East title and pulled off arguably the biggest upset in NCAA Tournament history when they stunned No. 1 seed Virginia in the first round.
 
Now in his fourth year in the college ranks, and just 22 games into his first season as a head coach, Aldrich can add a win over a college basketball legend to his ever-expanding resume.
 
Squaring off against 600-game winner, national champion and former Naismith National Coach of the Year Tubby Smith, it was the newcomer Aldrich who celebrated at the buzzer after his Lancers (13-9, 3-4 Big South) won a physical, defensive battle over perennial Big South contender High Point, 55-51 Thursday night in Willett Hall.
 
The win came over a High Point (10-9, 3-2 Big South) team that entered the night winners of four of their past five under the first-year leadership of Smith, who took over his alma mater this season after leading numerous NCAA powerhouse programs, including Kentucky, Memphis and Minnesota, among others.
 
Senior forward Spencer Franklin led Longwood's charge on the court, grabbing a career-high 10 rebounds against the Big South's top rebounding team while adding six points and two blocks. Isaiah Walton and Sean Flood combined for 20 points off the bench, and the Lancers overcame a poor shooting night to improve to 8-2 in Willett Hall.
 
"For a minute, I thought they forgot the point of the game on offense, to put it in the basket," Aldrich said. "But they found a way to win. That's actually a big step for any athletic team that is looking to be successful – finding a way to win in challenging circumstances when you're not playing your best."
 
The victory is the latest notch in a historic season that has seen Longwood post its best 22-game start of the Division I era, backed by a 10-5 non-conference record, Big South wins over Winthrop and UNC Asheville, and a 7-2 record in games following a loss.
 
And despite coming into  Thursday's game off back-to-back losses for only the second time this season, Longwood managed to fight off numerous scoring droughts on the strength of a stout defense that held the Panthers to just .290 (18-of-62) shooting from the floor and .182 (4-of-22) from three-point range.
 
"I thought the game was extremely physical, and I thought both teams played very hard," Aldrich said. "Credit to Spencer, Pernell [Adgei], Jordan [Cintron] and Gus [Okafor]. I thought they really competed down in the post. They made things difficult. High Point is leading the conference in offensive and defensive rebounding, so for us to lose the rebounding war by one, that says a lot. Then at the end of the game, they came up with the rebounds we needed to seal the victory."
 
Those aforementioned four forwards combined to absorb the absence of sixth-year forward Damarion Geter, who missed the game with an ankle injury he suffered against Radford Monday. Okafor came off the bench to grab a career-high six rebounds and his first career block, while Cintron stepped into the starting lineup in Geter's place and finished with six points and three boards in just 16 minutes of action.
 
Cintron's two biggest rebounds came in the closing seconds and sealed the game for Longwood. His first came after High Point senior Jordan Whitehead missed an open layup under the basket with just seven seconds left, spoiling the Panthers' shot at overcoming Longwood's 52-50 lead. Cintron flew in from the lane, grabbed the errant shot, drew a foul and hit the second of two free throws to put Longwood ahead 53-50 with 5.9 seconds left.
 
From there, Flood purposely fouled High Point guard Jamal Wright, who went to the line for a one-and-one, hit the first and intentionally missed the second, which Cintron again pulled down. From there, Shabooty Phillips drew a foul and hit both free throws to ice the win for Longwood.
 
"We've been focusing on learning to compete," Aldrich said. "We talk so much about the root and being focused on the details and providing a great effort, but it's actually effort and competing. It's not just playing hard;  you need to inflict your will on the other team. I thought the guys really did a nice job of that tonight with regard to competing and making plays when they needed to."
 
Longwood also struggled to score, shooting just .333 (18-of-54) from the field, .226 (7-of-31) from three-point range and .632 (12-of-19) from the free throw line. Both teams endured a combined scoring drought of more than four minutes in the first half during which they traded 13 consecutive missed shots before Walton finally broke up the streak with a three-pointer with 4:51 remaining.
 
The lid lifted slightly in the second half, during which Wright scored nine of his 12 points for High Point and Cintron came alive for all six of his. The story of the second half came on the opposite end of the floor, however, as the Lancers changed the complexion of the game with a 13-2 run in which they forced stops on seven of eight High Point possessions to balloon a two-point lead to double digits, 39-29.
 
High Point closed the gap within the final minute behind a full-court press that forced back-to-back Longwood turnovers and cut the Lancer lead to two with 28 seconds to play. However, Cintron's timely rebounding preserved that slim lead and handed the Lancers their second straight win over the Panthers after upsetting them on their home floor in last year's Big South Championship first round.
 
Now back inside the top seven in the Big South standings, the Lancers will look to continue their climb Saturday when they face Big South newcomer USC Upstate at 4:30 p.m. on ESPN3.
 
#GoWood