At Long Last, Longwood Opens Season Thursday Versus Delaware State
Men's Basketball /
The Opening Tip
• Longwood tips off the 2020-21 season Thursday at noon with a Thanksgiving season-opener against Delaware State at the Mako Medical Wake Forest Classic. The game will air on ACC Network Extra and be the first of two matchups for the Lancers at the multi-team event. Longwood will also face Wake Forest Friday at 7 p.m. on ACC Network, while Delaware State will play Wake Forest Wednesday at 4 p.m. in the opening game of the tournament.
• Following the graduation of a four-man senior class last season, Longwood returns two starters and 10 letterwinners for 2020-21. That group includes 46 percent of Longwood's scoring, 58 percent of rebounding and 51 percent of assists from last year's fourth-place Big South squad.
• The Lancers have just one senior on their roster in forward Ilija Stefanovic and only two players who have played multiple seasons under head coach Griff Aldrich: redshirt junior guard Juan Munoz and redshirt sophomore forward Abraham Deng.
• Longwood head coach Griff Aldrich and Delaware State head coach Eric Skeeters served together on the same coaching staff at UMBC from 2016-18. During that two-year stint, UMBC won the 2018 America East Championship and went on to topple No. 1 overall seed Virginia in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Basketball Tournament. That win marked the first time in tournament history that a 16-seed defeated a 1-seed.
• Both Aldrich and Skeeters were hired as head coaches at their respective institutions in 2018, with Aldrich taking over at Longwood on March 22, 2018, and Skeeters taking over at Delaware State on July 25, 2018.
• Thursday's game will be the second showdown between Aldrich and Skeeters after Aldrich's Lancers defeated Skeeters' Hornets 89-73 in Farmville, Va., on Nov. 16, 2018.
By The Numbers
• Longwood enters its third year under head coach Griff Aldrich, who last season became the first coach in the program's Division I era to win 30 games by the end of his second season.
• Aldrich's two-year total of 30 wins is the Lancers' best two-year stretch since jumping to the Division I level in 2004. The 2008-09 (17-14) and 2009-10 (12-19) Lancers combined for 29 wins as a Division I Independent.
• Thursday's game will mark Longwood's first-ever contest played on Thanksgiving day.
• Redshirt junior point guard Juan Munoz enters the season on a streak of 18 consecutive games with a made three-pointer. He led Longwood in made three-pointers (51), scoring (10.3 ppg.), steals (43), made free throws (70) and free throw attempts (89) last season.
• Sophomore forward Leslie Nkereuwem led Longwood with 21 dunks as a true freshman last season, which was three times more than the next closest Lancer. Nkereuwem was Longwood's first player off the bench a team-high 19 times.
• Longwood is 9-8 under Aldrich in games that were either decided by one possession (three points or fewer) or went to overtime. The Lancers went 4-4 in those games in 2019-20 and 5-4 in 2018-19. Longwood is 3-2 in overtime games under Aldrich.
• This year's Longwood team is the tallest in program history with an average height of 6-4.35 inches. Two Lancers — 6-11 Abraham Deng and 6-10 Ilija Stefanovic — are near the seven-foot mark, while a Big South-leading nine players are listed at 6-5 or taller.
• Longwood has made the second-most made three-pointers in the Big South over the past two years, sinking 293 to trail only reigning Big South Champion Winthrop's 322.
Quotable
"It's the most talented team I've had in my three years here. We have a good nucleus of guys who have been in the program, but they just don't have the playing experience yet. But I feel great about the type of kids and players we have, and we're heading in the right direction. The question will be how quickly do we season, how quickly do we get that experience?"
— Third-year head coach Griff Aldrich on the makeup of his 2020-21 Lancers
Series History
• Longwood and Delaware State meet for the third time in series history and the second time since Griff Aldrich took over the Lancer program three years ago.
• The Lancers have won each of the first two meetings with a 69-65 victory in the series debut on Nov. 29, 2008, and an 89-73 rout in the rematch a decade later on Nov. 16, 2018.
• Thursday's game will be the second neutral-site meeting between Longwood and Delaware State in the series. The first meeting between the teams took place at the 2008 Las Vegas Invitational in Las Vegas.
• The only player on Longwood's roster who played in the last meeting against the Hornets is redshirt junior Juan Munoz, who played two minutes that night.
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