Griff Aldrich & Sean Flood
The Opening Tip
•   Longwood tips off its second season under head coach
Griff Aldrich after enjoying a breakout inaugural campaign under the attorney-turned-coach in 2018-19.
•   Longwood's first game of 2019-20 pits them against the Atlantic East Conference preseason favorite Marymount in Willett Hall.
•   The Lancers are coming off their first-ever Division I postseason appearance since making the jump to that level of 2004-05. Last year Longwood received a bid to the Roman College Basketball Invitational where they reached the quarterfinals after a first-round win over Southern Miss.
•   Three starters and seven letterwinners return from last year's squad, including the senior quartet of guards
Sean Flood,
Shabooty Phillips,
JaShaun Smith and
Jaylon Wilson. Those four accounted for 54 percent of Longwood's scoring and 59 percent of the team's assists in 2018-19.
•   The Lancers enter the 2019-20 season ranked No. 6 in the Big South Preseason Coaches and Media Poll. That ties the highest Big South preseason ranking for the Lancers, matching the 2015-16 team's No. 6 position.
•   Longwood returns 68.8 percent of its scoring, 72 percent of its assists and 56 percent of its rebounding from last season.
•   In conjunction with Tuesday's season opener, Longwood will host a canned food drive for Elwood's Cabinet. Fans will receive free admission in exchange for one canned good in support of National Hunger and Poverty Week. Elwood's Cabinet is a local initiative that provides an accessible food pantry for students at Longwood University.
•   Longwood won its season opener last season,
84-56 over Randolph on Nov. 6, 2018.
•   The Lancers have opened the past five seasons with a home game and are 3-2 in those games.
By The Numbers
•   Last season then-first-year head coach
Griff Aldrich led Longwood to a nine-win improvement from the season prior. That was the fourth-biggest turnaround by any first-year head coach in Division I basketball and made the 2018-19 Lancers the second-winningest team of the program's Division I era and the winningest group since Longwood joined the Big South in 2012-13.
•   This season Longwood's roster includes four seniors, tied for the third most of any Big South team. Those four —
Sean Flood,
Shabooty Phillips,
Jaylon Wilson and
JaShaun Smith — all averaged more than 21.0 minutes per game each last season and finished the year as Longwood's top four scorers.
•   Phillips, a Preseason All-Big South selection, was paramount to Longwood's three-point onslaught in 2019-20, hitting 74 himself while assisting on 93 others. He had a hand in more than 50 percent of Longwood's school-record 333 three-pointers.
•   Wilson found his scoring groove over the final 11 games of the 2018-19 season, averaging a team-high 15.3 points per game during that stretch. He scored in double figures eight times in that span, including three 20-point outbursts.
•   Smith enters his senior season just 230 shy of reaching 1,000 for his career. He would be just the 23rd player in school history to hit that milestone.
•   Flood and redshirt sophomore
Juan Munoz both shot over 40.0 percent from three-point range last season, with Flood finishing at .408 (51-of-125) and Munoz a team-leading .432 (38-of-88).
•   Longwood held opponents to a .418 (362-of-865) field goal percentage in Willett Hall last season.
•   Along with Longwood' seven returners, Aldrich has added seven newcomers to the roster. Five of those seven stand 6-5 or taller.
Quotable
"Our standard is excellence. You can't be better one day and worse the next. We need to get better every day."
— Senior guard
Shabooty Phillips at Big South media day
Series History
•   Longwood and Marymount will meet for only the second time in series history Tuesday in the Lancers' 2019-20 season opener.
•   Located in Arlington, Va., Marymount is approximately 170 miles north of Longwood's home in Farmville.
•   The last and only time the teams played each other came nearly 30 years ago on Dec. 2, 1989 when the Lancers cruised to a 98-63 victory.
#GoWood
