FARMVILLE, Va. -- The Longwood women's basketball team will close non-conference play Saturday as Regent comes to the Joan Perry Brock Center for a 2 p.m., tip off. Jose Ramos Flores and Justin Dalton will have the call on ESPN+.
All single-game tickets purchased for the previously scheduled Mid-Atlantic Christian game will be honored against Regent.
STORYLINES
▪ Longwood closes its non-conference schedule Saturday, playing its first-ever game against Regent, of Virginia Beach, Va.
▪ Freshman forward
Frances Ulysse played a key role in helping Longwood find a way back into the game at Gardner-Webb Wednesday. She scored a career-high 15 points with eight rebounds, including 12 points and eight boards in the third, as the Lancers cut deficit to 54-44 to begin the final 10 minutes. Ulysse also shot 7-for-10 from the free-throw line and added a career-best two blocked shots.
▪ The other freshman big for Longwood, forward
Otaifo Esenabhalu finished with six points and 11 rebounds at Gardner-Webb. It marked the Valdosta, Ga., native's third double-figure rebounding effort of the season. She added one assist and one steal in 30 minutes off the bench.
▪ Anne-Hamilton LeRoy is currently 35th all-time in the Big South in scoring with 1,406 points – just six points from passing UNC Asheville's Shonese Jones for 34th – and is one of 141 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 138, making her 100th start Jan. 10 at Radford.
▪ Adriana Shipp-Davis is approaching a pair of milestones, needing 50 points to score 1,000 points and 18 rebounds for 500 boards in her career. She would be the 142nd player in league history to score 1,000 points and 135th to grab 500 rebounds. If Shipp-Davis is able to join the 1,000/500 club, she'd be the 80th player in Big South history to do so.
ABOUT THE ROYALS
Regent University, which began intercollegiate athletics in 2016-17, holds membership in the United States Collegiate Athletic Association and National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association. The school was founded by Pat Robertson as the Christian Broadcasting Network University in 1977, adopting its current moniker in 1990.
The Royals are 4-12 overall on the season and 2-0 in the Eastern Metro Athletic Conference, and are led in scoring by Jabarria Brown with 18.5 points per game.
Regent scores 67.4 points per game, while giving up 73.6. The Royals shoot 34.3 percent from the field and average 36.9 rebounds per contest.
LAST TIME OUT
Redshirt senior Adriana Shipp-Davis scored a game-high 19 points on 8-of-16 shooting, but Gardner-Webb put four in double figures and nailed 12 3-pointers for a 74-59 Big South Conference win at Paul Porter Arena Wednesday.
The Runnin' Bulldogs got 15 points apiece from Ashley Hawkins and Grace Pack, 12 from Micahla Funderburk and 10 more from Trinity Moreland in the victory. Hawkins added 10 assists, as well, for a double-double.
Longwood, which trailed 39-20 at halftime, found its way back into the game in large part due to the second-half play of freshman forward Frances Ulysse. She scored 12 of her career-high 15 points in the third period, pulling the Lancers to within 54-44 at the start of the final 10 minutes. Free throws by Janay Turner and Ulysse at the nine-minute mark of the fourth helped Longwood creep to 54-46, but GWU pulled away from there.
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 109-76 (.589), as of Friday.
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. The Blue Hose earned the final nod for the top spot in the poll.
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 (138, 36th in Division I, 38th in all NCAA divisions), points (1,406, 98th in Division I, 166th in all divisions), free throws made (375, 35th in Division I) and free throws attempted (492, 37th in Division I).
OTAIFO EARNS BIG SOUTH HONOR
Freshman forward Otaifo Esenabhalu earned Big South Freshman of the Week Nov. 20 after averaging three points and 8.5 rebounds at James Madison and Clemson. She tallied career highs of 15 rebounds and three blocks against JMU.
CRASHIN' THE BOARDS
Freshman forward Otaifo Esenabhalu has grabbed at least eight rebounds per game in six of the last nine games, dating to Dec. 22 against Georgia Southern when she collected nine. Esenabhalu is averaging 6.8 boards in that span, with an average of 7.4 in seven Big South Conference games to rank fifth in the league. She is fourth in offensive (3.1) and 11th in defensive (4.3) rebounds.
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE BENCH
Longwood's non-starters are averaging 20.7 points per game, a figure that is third in the Big South and 121st overall in Division I.
Longwood has outscored the opponent bench against Chowan Nov. 12, at Stony Brook Dec. 11, at Charleston Southern Jan. 6, versus UNC Asheville Jan. 13, against USC Upstate Jan. 17 and at Presbyterian Jan. 20.
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 (375), is also eighth in free-throw percentage (76.2) and eighth in points (1,406).
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.
NEXT TO 1,000?
Redshirt senior guard Adriana Shipp-Davis comes into play needing 50 points to reach the 1,000-point milestone for her career. The 2023 Preseason All-Big South First Team honoree posted 21 double-figure scoring games, including seven with 20-plus points, last season. She has scored in double digits 43 times in her career, leading the Lancers to an 18-25 record in those games. When Shipp-Davis goes for 20 or more, which she's done nine times, Longwood has played to a 4-5 record.
Shipp-Davis turned in a career high of 26 points in a 75-65 victory over UNC Asheville on Jan. 11, 2023 while shooting 9-for-14 from the field that day.
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 138 games and 104 starts, the Seneca, S.C., native is 101-for-343 from 3-point range, good for 29.4 percent.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
With 20 points and 15 rebounds versus Norfolk State Dec. 31, Adriana Shipp-Davis tallied the 13th double-double in the Big South this season and first for Longwood. She is one of 12 players in the league to achieve the feat this season.
NOTING THE WIN AT OHIO
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.
Longwood grabbed a season-high 51 rebounds against the Bobcats, marking the most since collecting 54 against Hampton March 3, 2022, a 70-61 win in the Big South quarterfinals.
SHOOTING TRENDS
Longwood fell at Presbyterian, 69-66, Jan. 20 while shooting 50 percent (24-for-48) overall as a team and 57.9 percent in the second half. The Lancers limited the Blue Hose to 49 percent on the night, as well, and are now to 9-4 overall under head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery and 4-4 in 2023-24 when outshooting the opposition. It was the second 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).
SHUFFLING THE DECK
Longwood has employed five different starting lineups in 19 games so far this season. The five-player group of Kiki McIntyre, Anne-Hamilton LeRoy, Janay Turner, Fances Ulysse and Adriana Shipp-Davis has started a team-high eight consecutive games and are 2-6 together.
LeRoy and Turner have started in all 19 games while Ulysse has started 13 times.
CONTROLLING THE BOARDS
Longwood has played to a 6-3 record when outrebounding its opponent in two seasons under head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery. The Lancers are 3-1 when doing so this season with a combined plus-20 rebounding margin in their four victories.
SHIPP-DAVIS SPARKS LANCERS
Redshirt senior guard Adriana Shipp-Davis made her first start of the season Dec. 17 at William & Mary and responded well. The Chesapeake, Va., native led the Lancers in scoring with 12 points and grabbed three rebounds in 21 minutes of action. She was 4-for-10 from the field, including going a season-best 3-for-5 from 3-point range in what was the 52nd start of her career. Shipp-Davis has scored double figures in nine of 19 games this season, including seven of the last 12.
FOUR SCORE
Longwood had four players score in double figures – Anne-Hamilton LeRoy (22 points), Adriana Shipp-Davis (14), Otaifo Esenabhalu (10) and Janay Turner (10) – for the second time in three games at Presbyterian on Jan 20 after last accomplishing the feat Feb. 18, 2023 at Radford in a 65-63 win.
20-POINT SCORERS
Anne-Hamilton LeRoy scored a game-high 22 points at Presbyterian Jan. 20 for her second 20-point game of the season Janay Turner (20 Jan. 17 versus USC Upstate and 22 Nov. 29 at Ohio) also has multiple 20-point games for Longwood. The Lancers now have six games of at least 20 points this season.
There have been 55 games in which a player has scored at least 20 points in the Big South from 22 different individuals.
FREE THROWS WIN BALLGAMES
The Lancers lead the league in free throw attempts (19.05), which is 73rd best in the country. Longwood is second in the Big South in free throws made per game at 12.95, a figure that is 97th in the nation. The Lancers are sixth in the league in free throw percentage (68), which is 249th nationally.
Individually, Janay Turner ranks third in the league in free throws attempted (95, 70th in Division I) and fourth in free throws made (69, 88th in Division I).
LANCERS LEAD LEAGUE IN STEALS
As a team, the Lancers lead the Big South in steals per game (10.6), which is 38th in the nation.
Junior guard Kiki McIntyre leads the league in steals per game (2.16, 91st in Division I) and steals (41, 67th in Division I). Fellow junior guard Malea Brown ranks fourth in the league and 205th nationally in steals per game at 1.79.
BIG SOUTH FIELD GOAL SHOOTING
Through seven games, Longwood is third in the league in field goal percentage in Big South games, shooting 40.5 (157-of-388).
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 39.5 percent (32-for-81) from distance on the year.
As a team, the Lancers are fourth in the league in 3-point field goal percentage at 30.4 percent, which is 198th 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 6.0 rebounds per game through 19 games.
Esenabhalu is one of just six 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. 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.
