FARMVILLE, Va. – If experience is the best teacher, it's not always a kind one. Saturday night in Willett Hall, a youthful Longwood men's basketball team learned another hard lesson.
Buoyed by a double-double from redshirt junior forward Hayden Brown and a combined 35 points from starting guards Fletcher Abee and Kaiden Rice, The Citadel (6-0, 0-0 SoCon) took charge in the game's final minute and dealt Longwood a heart-rending 91-89 defeat Saturday afternoon in Willett Hall.
In a matchup that was back-and-forth throughout, the Lancers (1-6, 0-2 Big South) led in the final minute after DeShaun Wade's six consecutive points gave them an 89-86 advantage, but the Bulldogs responded with a 5-0 run of their own and reclaimed the lead for good on Abee's go-ahead three-pointer with 52 seconds to play.
Abee's trey was the last of nine lead changes that occurred in the game's final 5:31, but it was the final one the Bulldogs needed to keep intact their unbeaten start to the 2020-21 season.
"Basketball is a game of runs," said Longwood head coach Griff Aldrich. "They went on runs, we went on runs. Unfortunately we didn't have enough in the tank there at the end to hold them."
With a veteran lineup spearheaded by the redshirt junior Brown, senior Rice and graduate point guard Tyler Moffe, The Citadel's experience came through in the final minute with back-to-back defensive stops after Abee's go-ahead triple. Longwood got a player in the paint in each of  their final two possessions, but two true freshmen came up empty both times as Jesper Granlund's layup fell short at the 35-second mark, and Justin Hill's buzzer-beating coast-to-coast drive ended with his contested jumper hitting just off the side of the rim.
The loss was the Lancers' third straight in which they were within one possession in the game's final minute, following similarly narrow back-to-back defeats of 67-66 and 62-53 against perennial Big South power Radford this past Monday and Tuesday.
"This team's going to be a good team, but we have to learn the lesson," said Aldrich. "And the lesson will continue to be taught to us until we sit down and embrace it."
Juxtaposing The Citadel's experience was Longwood's youth, as the Lancers once again rolled out a starting lineup that featured the true freshman duo of Granlund and Hill and a bench including five first or second-year players.
Despite their inexperience, Longwood's 12-man rotation overcame a sluggish opening half to battle back from an eight-point deficit with a season-high 51 points after halftime. However, The Citadel's first-half cushion – built largely by the literal and figurative strength of Brown, who finished with a game-high 26 points and 10 rebounds – proved too much to overcome.
Brown's production helped the Bulldogs overcome a career-high 18 points from Hill and a career-high 20 from sophomore Leslie Nkereuwem, who finished 9-of-11 from the floor. Longwood junior guard DeShaun Wade – in his 2020-21 debut after missing the first six games with an injury – also scored 14 points, and redshirt junior point guard Juan Munoz added 13.
But Brown, who leads the Southern Conference in both scoring and rebounding, did his damage inside and out, hitting 3-of-8 three-pointers and 11-of-12 free throws, until he fouled out with 6:22 to play. That opened a welcome window for a comeback for the Lancers, who immediately opened up a 10-2 run after his departure that gave them an 80-79 lead with 5:00 to play.
However, the back-and-forth finale ultimately saw Abee, Moffe and Rice take on the leadership mantle left in Brown's absence. Longwood made just one turnover down the stretch, but it was ill-timed, as Nkereuwem was called for an illegal screen with 1:02 to play and Longwood leading 89-88. Abee's go-ahead three-pointer came on the next possession.
"The guys are learning, and it's not an all-or-nothing situation," Aldrich said. "We had nine turnovers in the first half and one in the second half. That's one of our biggest things we have to get better at offensively, and to the guys' credit, they really did that.
"There's a lot of basketball left to be played, and it's a young team that's learning some valuable but extremely painful lessons. The quicker we learn them, the less painful it will be."
Saturday's game leaves the Lancers with just non-conference game remaining on the schedule, which will be this Monday's road showdown at ACC foe Virginia Tech. That game will tip off at 8 p.m. on ACC Network from Cassell Coliseum.
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