FARMVILLE, Va. – Willett Hall has never been louder. Longwood has never been better.
The way they're doing it, it's getting hard to believe there isn't something magical about this team.
Leslie Nkereuwem scored a career-high 24 points, including 10 of 12 free throws, and Longwood won its seventh straight -- thrilling a deafening student section that packed Willett and saw the Lancers extend their best-ever start of the Division 1 era with a 79-71 win over fellow Big South title contender North Carolina A&T.
It was the fourth game in the last five the Lancers (14-5, 6-0 Big South) rallied after being down 8 points or more in the second half.
Longwood, now 11-1 in Willett, heads into a key home matchup with perennial Big South power Winthrop on its first-ever 6-game winning streak in the Big South, and with more wins than any other Division 1 team in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
After trailing most of the game, the Lancers dominated the home stretch, outscoring the Aggies 23-11 over the final six minutes, and taking their first lead since early in the first half 62-61 on a Jordan Perkins layup with 4:01 left, followed by an Isaiah Wilkins steal and layup that sent the crowd into a frenzy.
When it was over, it was no surprise the team poured over to the student section for a raucous celebration.
"This has been building," said Head Coach Griff Aldrich. "It's really fun for me to see. This is what we dreamed of when everything started at Longwood to build a program for the university, for the fans for the students, for the alumni. It's just been really rewarding to have a packed Willett Hall. It absolutely gives us a huge boost. It was just a tremendous college basketball atmosphere."
The Aggies (9-12, 4-3 Big South) seemed to fluster Longwood's rhythm for most of the first half and much of the second. But like a string of Big South teams have discovered this month, it's a mistake to let Longwood stick around. With Nkereuweum fighting for points and free throws in the paint, Longwood clawed to a 33-28 deficit at halftime.
The Aggies extended the lead to 12 early in the second, but even as the teams traded buckets and stops – and the Aggies seemed to have an answer every time Longwood made a run – Aldrich said he knew his team was still in it.
"They made some 3s to get up 12, but we were consistently playing with purpose," said the Lancers' fourth-year head coach. "And when we tightened up on the fundamentals, we really made it difficult for them to score."
At around the seven-minute mark, Longwood guards Justin Hill and DeShaun Wade took command and Longwood's defense was dominant. The dynamic scoring pair had 24 of their combined 28 points after halftime.
Jesper Granlund hit just one shot all night – but it was a huge one, a 3-pointer with 5:01 to go off a Hill steal that got the Lancers within 1 at 61-60. The defense flummoxed N.C. A&T from there on, with the layups by Perkins and Wilkins giving Longwood a lead it would not relinquish, sealed with free throws down the stretch.
Aldrich noted that Nkereuwem's 24 points overshadowed the forward's free-throw shooting and defensive performance against A&T's Collin Smith, who had 22 against Campbell in the Aggies' last game.
"I told the guys this win tonight they're enjoying the fruit of their labor, not since the beginning of the season, not since the pre-season, but since back in June," Aldrich said. "Now they're really starting to enjoy it. And what's exciting is there's still a lot of room for improvement."
That could be tough news for the rest of the Big South, including Winthrop, which comes to Willett Saturday to face the best team Longwood fans have seen in the D1 era – energized by what is shaping up to be the best home-court advantage in the Big South.
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Comeback Kids Do It Again As Longwood Tops NC A&T 79-71 - Longwood Athletics
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