FARMVILLE, Va. — The Longwood women's basketball team welcomes Elon to the Joan Perry Brock Center on Tuesday at 6 p.m.,for a pre-Thanksgiving matchup as the Lancers continue a five-game homestand.

Fans can claim a free ticket to the game in exchange for two canned food items as the Lancers are participating in a food drive to benefit FACES Food Pantry. The organization is a local "Tier 1" Food Agency that provides food to households in need throughout the greater Farmville community.

STORYLINES
▪ The meeting with the Phoenix is the first in the series since Nov. 15, 2008. The game was part of Elon's season-opening ISES Cancer Awareness Classic. Longwood won, 58-54, in overtime on the strength of 15 points and 10 rebounds from Anna Steg. Elon erased a six-point deficit in the final two-and-a-half minutes of regulation to force the extra session. Longwood then tallied seven of the 10 points in OT to secure the victory.
▪ Elon holds a 13-7 advantage in the all-time series, which began on Jan. 31, 1975 with a 75-60 Phoenix victory. The teams have split the eight games in Farmville.
▪ Longwood is creating 26 turnovers per game, a figure that is 13th best in the NCAA. The Lancers have forced more turnovers than the opposition in five of the seven games this season and have gone 4-1 in those contests. Longwood also leads the Big South Conference in turnover margin at plus-6.29, which is 47th in Division I women's basketball.
▪ Longwood leads the Big South Conference in 11 statistical categories in all as a team. Some of them include: scoring offense (72.7 points per game), scoring margin (plus-13.9 points per game), rebounds per game (41.57), offensive rebounds per game (16.0) and rebounding margin (plus-2.7). The Lancers are also tops in the circuit for assist-to-turnover ratio (0.73), assists per game (14.4) and steals per game (13.4).

SCOUTING THE PHOENIX
Elon, which has dropped two of its last three games, enters the contest at 3-2 on the season. The Phoenix took a 87-69 loss at Virginia Tech on Saturday. Guard Jayda Angel claimed her second CAA Rookie of the Week honor, scoring a career-high 20 points with six rebounds against the Hokies. Angel is averaging 11.8 points and 3.4 rebounds per game off the bench.

Raven Preston leads the Phoenix and is sixth in the CAA in scoring at 13.6 points per game. She is also second in the league in rebounding, averaging 9.6 boards per game.

Forward Iycez Adams was named to the preseason all-CAA second team, while Preston was an honorable-mention selection.

Elon, under 14th-year head coach Charlotte Smith, was chosen to finish seventh in the 14-team CAA.

LAST TIME OUT
Sophomore forward Otaifo Esenanhalu came off the bench to notch her third double-double of the season with 12 points and 12 rebounds, but Navy earned a 75-61 win over Longwood at the Joan Perry Brock Center Saturday.

Esenabhalu, who came into play 25th in the NCAA in double-doubles this season, collected 10 points and 10 rebounds in the second half for her fifth career double-double to help the Lancers try to climb out of an 11-point halftime deficit. Navy, though, staved off the comeback effort to improve to 6-0 on the year despite Longwood shooting 53.6 percent (15-for-28) in the second half.

COMMONWEALTH LEADERS
Through games of Nov. 24, the Longwood women's and men's basketball teams have combined for a 10-4 record, which is tied for the best mark of any of the 13 NCAA Division I institutions in the state that sponsor both sports.

Norfolk State is also 10-4 with the Spartans' women's team sitting at 6-1, including a 57-54 win at the SEC's Missouri on Nov. 10.

LANCERS SEVENTH IN BIG SOUTH POLL
Longwood was picked seventh in the 2024-25 Big South preseason poll. The Lancers earned  30 points in the poll, ahead of Presbyterian (23 points) and UNC Asheville (17).

High Point was chosen first with five first-place votes and 76 total points, followed by Radford with 57 points and one first-place nod and Charleston Southern with 55 points. Winthrop in fourth, Gardner-Webb in sixth and the Blue Hose in eighth received the remaining first-place votes.

IF YOU BEAT 'EM, JOIN 'EM
Mariah Wilson transferred to Longwood after playing her first three seasons and 60 career games at Towson from 2021-24. Wilson averaged 1.5 points and 0.6 rebounds per game in 5.8 minutes for the Tigers.

When head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery brought her team to TU Arena Nov. 12, 2022, Wilson played three minutes in an 83-72 Towson victory.

Wilson, who has earned her first five collegiate starts this season, tied her career high with 13 points versus Navy Saturday, adding a career-best seven steals at Queens on Nov. 18.

LUCKY 7
The Lancers will play half of their 14 non-conference games in the friendly confines of the Joan Perry Brock Center this season. That reflects a stark contrast from 2023-24 in which Longwood played seven consecutive non-league games away from Farmville from Nov. 15 at James Madison to Dec. 17 at William & Mary, traveling approximately 4,534 miles in that span.

FIVE IN DOUBLE FIGURES
In the Lancers' 80-66 win at Queens Nov. 18, five different players landed in double digits. It marked the first time since Feb. 15, 2023, a 97-64 home win over USC Upstate.

SHIRLEY DUNCAN CLASSIC
The Lancers are set to host their first  in-season tournament since the 2010-11 season when South Carolina State, McNeese and William & Mary join Longwood in Farmville for the Shirley Duncan Classic on Dec. 6-8.

The event is named in honor of Shirley Duncan, the all-time winningest coach in Longwood women's basketball history. A 2016 Longwood athletics hall of fame inductee, and one of four associated with the women's basketball program to be part of the hall of fame, Duncan led the Lancers to a 355-263 (.575) record from 1983-05 with four NCAA Division II tournament appearances.

LET'S PLAY TWO!
Longwood freshman forward Montgomery Bedford, a 6-foot-2 native of Baltimore, Md., and product of Baltimore City College, who was recruited to Farmville to play women's lacrosse for the Lancers, walked onto the women's basketball team this fall. Bedford is believed to be one of just four dual-sport student-athletes on Division I women's basketball rosters this season.

The others are Santa Clara forward Lauren Glover, who also plays for the Broncos' women's volleyball team; Cincinnati guard Daylee Dunn, also a member of the Bearcats' track and field team and Cal State Fullerton guard/forward Samantha Schuler, who is also on the Titans' track and field team.

Bedford is the first two-sport student-athlete to play women's basketball at Longwood since Mallory Odell did it from 2017-21, also playing for the softball team.

MS. 1,000
Longwood graduate student point guard Kiki McInytre needs 70 points to reach 1,000 for her career. The Boston native averaged 6.6 points per game last season, appearing in all 30 contests. She averaged 10.9 points per game in 61 games playing at NCAA Division II St Leo, scoring 663 points from 2020-23.

STUDENT-ATHLETES
No fewer than 10 Longwood women's basketball student-athletes were named to the 2023-24 Big South Presidential Honor Roll in June. To be included on the list, student-athletes must maintain at least a 3.0 grade-point average (on a 4.0 scale) for the academic year.

The players who achieved the feat were Lainey Bone, Malea Brown, Stephanie Davis, Otaifo Esenabhalu, Amor Harris, Kiki McIntyre, Nalani Simmons, Janay Turner Frances Ulysse and Bailey Williams.

Additionally, the Lancers earned their highest semester team grade-point average in history at 3.42 in the spring with McIntyre, Simmons and Turner collecting perfect 4.0 GPAs for the term.

STUDENT-ATHLETES, PART II
Kiki McIntyre and Bailey Williams were named to the 2023-24 College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team®. To be eligible, student-athletes must have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.5 and be starter or key contributor to their team.

THREE'S COMPANY
The Lancers went 9-for-27 (33.3 percent) from 3-point range against Hood Nov. 10. It marked the the second time this season and fourth in head coach Erika Lang-Montgomery's Longwood tenure that the Lancers made that many from distance.

The Lancers also went 9-for-20 (45 percent) at Norfolk State on Nov. 7.

Longwood buried 10 from downtown in an 88-59 homecoming win over Chowan Nov. 12, 2023 and nine more in a 77-64 loss at Presbyterian on Feb. 8, 2023.

The Lancers are 9-12 under Lang-Montgomery when they make at least five 3-pointers in a game.

BAND OF THIEVES
Longwood made 16 steals in its 59-41 victory at American Nov. 13. It was the ninth time under Erika Lang-Montgomery that the team had at least 15 steals in a game. The Lancers are 8-1 in those contests. Longwood is averaging 14.7 steals per game this year, which is currently 14th in the NCAA.

Individually, Mariah Wilson leads the Big South and is 11th in the country with 20 steals, while Malea Brown and Kiki McInytre are tied for 48th nationally with 16 steals.

Longwood led the Big South and finished 21st in the country in steals per game at 10.7 last season. McIntyre led the league at 2.77 per game, good for 20th in the NCAA, while she collected 83 total steals, which also led the league and was 29th in the country.

SPREADING THE LOVE
In the first seven games of the season, at least eight players put their names in the scoring column.

In the Nov. 10 102-21 homecoming victory over Hood, 12 of the 13 players on the roster scored points.

BENCH PRODUCTION
Longwood outscored the opponent bench in 13 games in 2023-24 and has done so in all seven games this season.

The Lancers posted an overwhelming 60-6 edge from its reserves – the largest margin of the season – as Longwood drubbed Hood, 102-21 on Nov. 10.

Longwood is averaging 36.7 bench points per game in 2024-25, good for 11th in NCAA Division I and first in the Big South.

CONSECUTIVE DOUBLE-DOUBLES
Sophomore  Otaifo Esenabhalu posted back-to-back double-doubles in the wins over Hood on Nov. 10 and at American on Nov. 13.

She tallied 12 points and 13 rebounds  against the Blazers and game highs of 10 points and 13 boards versus the Eagles.

They were the first consecutive double-doubles for a Longwood player since Akila Smith accomplished the feat on two separate occasions in the Lancers' Big South championship season of 2021-22. Smith last did it at North Carolina A&T (Dec. 29, 2021) and Presbyterian (Jan. 1, 2022), both Longwood victories.

Esenabhalu picked up her third double-double of the season with 12 points and 12 boards off the bench against Navy on Saturday. She now has five in her career and ranks 14th in the NCAA in the category this season.

ULYSSE BIG SOUTH PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Sophomore forward Frances Ulysse was named Big South Co-Player of the Week prior to the game Monday. She averaged 12.5 points and 8.5 rebounds in a 1-1 week that featured Longwood's first win over American since the 2006-07 season.

WINNING THE FIRST ONE
The Lancers' season-opening 81-70 win against Lincoln (Pa.) on Nov. 4 at the Joan Perry Brock Center marked Longwood's first victory to begin a season since defeating Campbell, 71-48, in the Lancer Classic at Willett Hall on Nov. 12, 2010.