FARMVILLE, Va. -- The Longwood women's basketball team hosts High Point Wednesday at the Joan Perry Brock Center at 7 p.m.
It's Greek Night at the JPB with the first 100 student in attendance receiving a t-shirt. Free rally towels are also available while supplies last, courtesy of North Street Press Club and Fishin' Pig.
STORYLINES
▪ Longwood and High Point play for the 47th time Wednesday. The series dates to the 1974-75 season and began with a 91-57 Lancers' win that year. The Panthers hold a 33-13 edge all-time, including winning 21 of the last 23 games.
▪ Longwood closed its non-conference slate Saturday with a 103-52 victory over Regent. It marked the most points the Lancers scored since Dec. 12, 2015 in a 100-57 win against North Carolina Wesleyan. LU shot 60.3 percent from the field, setting season highs in rebounds (52), assists (27) and steals (20).
▪ Four players scored in double digits for the third time in four games against the Royals, while all 12 active players scored points.
▪ Longwood tied the school record for points in a quarter, scoring 40 in the fourth. LU also scored 40 in third period of a 91-59 home win against Charleston Southern Feb. 2, 2022.
▪ Forward
Otaifo Esenabhalu recorded her first career double-double against Regent with a career-high 16 points and career-best-tying 15 rebounds. She averaged 11 points and 13 rebounds in two games last week to earn Big South Freshman of the Week honors for a second time, also winning it Nov. 20.
▪ 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.
SCOUTING HIGH POINT
High Point enters play alone in third place in the Big South Standings at 10-10 overall and 5-2 in the league. The Panthers are coming off a 75-68 home win over Winthrop and have won five of their last six games overall.
HPU is led by Big South Preseason Player of the Year Lauren Bevis, who is tops in the league in scoring 16.2 points per game. Nakyah Terrell is the Panthers' top rebounder, averaging 4.0 per game.
As a team, High Point leads the Big South in five statistical categories, including field goal percentage (40.5), 3-point percentage (31.8), blocks per game (3.3), fewest turnovers per game (16.2) and bench points per game (27.5).
LAST TIME OUT
Longwood scored its most points in nine seasons in a 103-52 victory over Regent at the Joan Perry Brock Center Saturday.
Janay Turner paced LU with a game- and career-high 24 points on 10-for-15 shooting, while freshman Otaifo Esenabhalu collected Longwood's second double-double of the season with her own career-high 16 points, adding a career-best-tying 15 rebounds.
Longwood blistered the nets with a season-best 60.3 percent from the field, connecting on 44 shots in 73 attempts overall. LU shot 64.3 percent (27-for-42) from the floor in the first half alone, running out to a 64-23 advantage at halftime.
Kiki McInytre finished with 15 points, seven assists and five steals, while redshirt senior Adriana Shipp-Davis scored 14 points with three assists and three steals.
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).
MILESTONE WATCH
Adriana Shipp-Davis is approaching a pair of milestones, needing 36 points to score 1,000 points and 15 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.
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 118-80 (.596), as of Tuesday.
CRASHIN' THE BOARDS
Freshman forward Otaifo Esenabhalu has grabbed at least eight rebounds per game in seven of the last 10 games, dating to Dec. 22 against Georgia Southern when she collected nine. Esenabhalu is averaging 7.6 boards in that span, with an average of 7.4 in seven Big South Conference games to rank fifth in the league. She is tied for third in offensive (3.1) and tied for eighth in defensive (4.3) rebounds.
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE BENCH
Longwood's non-starters are averaging 21.7 points per game, a figure that is third in the Big South and 89th overall in Division I.
Longwood has outscored the opponent bench in seven games this season, including getting a season-high 40 points from its reserves Jan. 27 against Regent.
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 36 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 44 times in her career, leading the Lancers to an 19-25 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
Adriana Shipp-Davis (20 points, 15 rebounds against Norfolk State) and Otaifo Esenabhalu (16 points, 15 boards) versus Regent) have Longwood's double-doubles this season. Only 14 players in the Big South have recorded a double-double this year.
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 at the time of 51 rebounds against the Bobcats.
SHOOTING TRENDS
The Lancers shot 60.3 percent and limited Regent to 27.8 percent Saturday and are now to 10-4 overall under head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery and 5-4 in 2023-24 when outshooting the opposition. It was the third 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) and at Presbyterian on Jan. 20 (50 percent).
SHUFFLING THE DECK
Longwood has employed six different starting lineups in 20 games so far this season. The five-player group of Kiki McIntyre, Anne-Hamilton LeRoy, Janay Turner, Fances Ulysse and Adriana Shipp-Davis started a team-high eight consecutive games from Dec. 31-Jan. 24 are 2-6 together.
Turner is the only Longwood player to start all 20 games, while LeRoy has 19 and Ulysse 14 times.
CONTROLLING THE BOARDS
Longwood has played to a 7-3 record when outrebounding its opponent in two seasons under head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery. The Lancers are 4-1 when doing so this season with a combined plus-55 rebounding margin in their five 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 10 of 20 games this season, including eight of the last 13.
20-POINT SCORERS
Janay Turner (career-high 24 points versus Regent, 20 Jan. 17 versus USC Upstate and 22 Nov. 29 at Ohio) has a team-leading three 20-point games for Longwood this season. Anne-Hamilton LeRoy also has multiple 20-point games (22 points at Presbyterian Jan. 20 and 23 versus Georgia Southern Dec. 22).
There have been 59 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 (18.85), which is 82nd best in the country. Longwood is second in the Big South in free throws made per game at 12.85, a figure that is 101st in the nation. The Lancers are sixth in the league in free throw percentage (68.2), which is 250th nationally.
Individually, Janay Turner ranks fourth in the league in both free throws attempted (97, 90th in Division I) and free throws made (71, 95th in Division I).
LANCERS LEAD LEAGUE IN STEALS
As a team, the Lancers lead the Big South in steals per game (11.1), which is 23rd in the nation.
Junior guard Kiki McIntyre leads the league in both steals (46, 49th in Division I) and steals per game (2.30, 63rd in Division I). Fellow junior guard Malea Brown ranks fourth in the league and 198th nationally in steals per game at 1.80.
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 38.6 percent (34-for-88) from distance on the year.
As a team, the Lancers are fourth in the league in 3-point field goal percentage at 30.1 percent, which is 209th 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 6.5 rebounds per game through 20 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, repeating the performance with 15 Jan. 27 against Regent. 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.
