By CHRIS COOK
LongwoodLancers.com

Longwood basketball has stormed into 2017 in historic fashion. The Lancers sit tied for first place in the Big South after opening the start of conference play with a pair of statement wins that have the program off to its first 2-0 start since joining the league five years ago.
 
That hot start may come as a surprise to those who declined to look beyond Longwood's 3-8 non-conference record, but the Lancers' surge to the top of the Big South standings has been the expectation in the locker room since the preseason. And despite major injuries to three starters, televised blowout losses to some of the best teams in college basketball, and a roster that dwindled from 12 available scholarship players to just eight, those expectations remained.
 
Now sitting atop the Big South standings as the calendar turns to 2017, Longwood's expectations have become reality.
 
"Coaches that shake my hand, whether it be the guys at Creighton, or from Texas Tech, say, 'If we lost that many starters, we wouldn't win a game,'" said fourth-year Longwood head coach Jayson Gee. "We've heard that, we haven't felt sorry for ourselves, and we've decided that this is who we are and this is how we're built. We just came together as a coaching staff and said, 'Let's figure out a way to put a game plan together to help this team be competitive.'"
 
Two games into the Big South season, Longwood has done just that.
 
Coming off back-to-back wins against Campbell and four-time reigning Big South champion High Point at the end of December, Longwood (5-8, 2-0 Big South) is the early surprise in the Big South. After jump-starting their conference schedule with a thrilling 79-77 win at home against Campbell on Dec. 29, the Lancers turned around fewer than 48 hours later and upset perennial championship contender High Point on the road on New Year's Eve.
 
That road win against High Point was not only Longwood's first conference victory over the Big South's winningest program over the past four years, it was the culmination of an adversity-riddled non-conference season that could have forced the Lancers to crumble, but instead hardened them for a run through the 18-game Big South gauntlet.
 
"I think there were three things that we learned," Gee said. "One, I don't think we did a great job playing together. There was a lot of bickering in huddles, a lot of frustration. Two, our transition defense was one of the worst in the country. Teams were just scoring too much in transition. Three, we weren't playing with a mental toughness and physicality.
 
"When we addressed those three things is when we came back from break and said 'New season. This is the Big South Conference. We're 0-0, and the teams that can learn from their non-conference games and apply it have a chance to do some things well.'"
 
Decimated by several major injuries, the short-handed Lancers had several chances to fold during the first two months after suffering several disparaging losses, including a 55-point defeat on national television to 10th-ranked Creighton, a 37-point loss to 10-win George Mason, and 31-point loss to Big 12 powerhouse Texas Tech. The 3-8 record they carried into conference play provided extra sting for the program's veterans looking to climb the Big South standings for a fourth straight year and the newcomers who bought into Gee's vision for the school's first Big South Basketball Championship.
 
"Naturally as basketball players and as human beings, taking hard losses makes you lose confidence and start to wonder about the year and everything," said redshirt sophomore Isaiah Walton, who alongside senior Darrion Allen has formed one of the top backcourt duos in the Big south. "But Coach Gee has been so calm through this whole situation. Even through our losses and everything, he's known what was going on. That's what I think about, just how great of a coach he is and how composed he is and everything. But for the team, I know that our confidence has skyrocketed after these two wins."
 
A 6-4, 185-pound combo guard, Walton is now one of just eight scholarship players available for a team hoping to best last season's program-best eighth-place Big South finish. To do it, the Lancers have had to shake off a series of devastating injuries, which include preseason ACL tears to power forward Jahleem Montague and point guard Juan Munoz, and a broken foot suffered by three-year starting forward Damarion Geter. Junior guard Kendrick Thompson has also been absent since Dec. 14 due to non-disciplinary personal reasons, and there is no timetable for his return. 
 
The result is a short-handed Longwood squad that has had to engage in bi-weekly chess matches without half of its back-row pieces.
 
"I just know coming in, I had high expectations with the recruiting class and what we could do; I thought we could come in and show people right off the bat," said Walton, who leads Longwood in assists and steals and ranks third in scoring.
 
"The injuries and everything have just kind of slowed down what we thought was going to happen, but we just have to be patient. I know we wanted to shock the world right off the bat, but now we have to ease into it."
 
Luckily the Lancers lay claim several Swiss Army knives who can play multiple positions, specifically Walton and Khris Lane, who have both shifted out of their true positions to compensate for Longwood's missing chess pieces.
 
Without Munoz and Thompson, Walton, who transferred to Longwood by way of UC Davis and Iowa Western, has become Longwood's de facto point guard alongside Bryan Gee, ranking among the Big South's top 10 with 13.5 points, 3.4 assists and 1.8 steals per game. Lane, meanwhile, has parked his 6-6, 245-pound frame more frequently in the paint, and to great effect, earning Big South Player of the Week honors on Jan. 2 after averaging 24.0 points and 7.5 rebounds during the two Big South-opening wins.
 
Sophomore Chris Shields, a wiry, sharp-shooting 6-8 swingman, has become a full-time power forward to offset the loss of Geter and Montague, and explosive 6-5 freshman JaShaun Smith has emerged as one of the top freshmen in the conference after Gee and his staff initially flirted with the idea of redshirting the gifted newcomer.
 
"Can you imagine going through recruiting, the summer, the preseason and then all of a sudden having to change positions? That alone, everybody can't do," Gee said. "I think that caused some initial frustration and affected chemistry on the court. But their chemistry off the court has ultimately won over on the court. I think that's because of the experiences they've had, and now that we're in January, they're more comfortable with who they are and what they need to do."
 
That chemistry has shown in more ways than just the past two games' scoring margin. After losing the rebounding battle by an average of 9.5 boards in their first 11 games, Longwood outrebounded both Campbell and High Point. After giving up 80.6 points per game against non-conference opponents, Longwood gave up just 66.0 per game to Campbell – the league's second-highest scoring offense – and High Point, the league's top three-point shooting team.
 
"We've identified that there's no one else coming, and to a man, our guys have embraced that," Gee said. "This is who we are. We have eight scholarship players and a seven-man rotation. We needed guys to step up, and I think they've done that."
 
Despite the hot start, however, a long battle for Big South Championship seeding awaits the Lancers. The conference is already riddled with parity, as three of the top four teams in the Big South Preseason Coaches Poll have already suffered a loss. The Lancers remain one of just three 2-0 teams atop the standings, tied with Radford and Liberty.
 
Longwood's next test comes this Wednesday, Jan. 4, when Presbyterian (4-9, 0-2 Big South) comes to Willett Hall for a 7 p.m. showdown that will be a rematch of a game Longwood lost 74-73 on a buzzer-beater last season.
 
"Who knows what we can do with this," Walton said. "We're just going to take every game seriously and not take any opponents lightly. We're just going to try to take care of business and do whatever we need to get that done."
 
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