HARRISONBURG, Va. — After a win its first-ever game at the new Joan Perry Brock Center Sunday, the Longwood women’s basketball team hits the road again to take on James Madison at the Atlantic Union Bank Center Wednesday at 7 p.m.
STORYLINES
▪ Longwood, coming off of its first win of the season on Sunday in its Joan Perry Center debut, heads to Harrisonburg Tuesday to take on James Madison at 7 p.m., in the Lancers’ first game at the Atlatic Union Bank Center, which opened in 2020.
▪ The Lancers and Dukes will meet for the 21st time since the 1972-73 season with JMU holding a 16-4 advantage in the series, including a 9-2 advantage in Harrisonburg. Longwood last beat JMU, Feb. 6, 1978, 74-40, on the road.
▪ Tuesday’s contest continues a stretch where Longwood plays nine of its first 10 games away from home. LU will travel approximately 4,534 miles in that span.
▪ Though three games this season, the Lancers are ninth in the NCAA in steals per game, avaraging 16. That figure was helped by a season-best 19 steals Sunday as LU topped Chowan, 88-59. Longwood turned the Hawks over 29 times in the contest, the most for the Lancers since forcing 28 USC Upstate miscues on Feb. 15, 2023 in a 97-64 home win.
▪ The Lancers are tops in the Big South in bench scoring, averaging 26.7 points per game. That number is currently 89th overall in NCAA Division I. Longwood has received at least 30 points from its bench in two of the first three games.
SCOUTING THE DUKES
James Madison enters play Wednesday at 2-1 and is coming off of an 81-54 win at Xavier Saturday that saw the Dukes’ Peyton McDaniel post a double-double of 22 points and 13 rebounds. McDaniel leads JMU with 11.3 points and 7.3 boards per game in the early season, while Kseniia Kozlova averages 11 points and 8.3 boards.
Under eighth-year head coach Sean O’Regan, JMU was picked to win the Sun Belt Conference with McDaniel and Kozlova selected as preseason All-Sun Belt second-team honorees.
LAST TIME OUT
Longwood earned its first win of the season Sunday, beating Division II Chowan, 88-59, in the first-ever women’s basketball game at the new home of the Lancers, the Joan Perry Brock Center.
Three players finished in double figures and junior Malea Brown scored 14 of her team-leading 20 points after halftime. senior Janay Turner finished with 19 points, going 5-for-5 from 3-point range and 6-for-7 from the floor overall.
The Lancers forced 29 turnovers and collected a season-high 19 steals.
TURNER FROM DOWNTOWN
On the heels of shooting a career-best 5-for-5 from 3-point range in the 88-59 win over Chowan Sunday, Janay Turner leads the Big South in 3s made with eight. She is 34th in the NCAA in the category while also averaging 2.67 treys made per game. Turner is also second in the Big South and 74 nationally with 48 total points.
A FAMILIAR FACE
Senior guard Bailey Williams will face her old team Wednesday when Longwood and James Madison meet. The Midlothian, Va., native played in 17 games off the bench for the Dukes in 2021-22 before transferring to Longwood last season. She also appeared in last season’s game against JMU at Willett Hall in Farmville, on Nov. 17, scoring three points and adding one assist, one steal and one block.
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, the Big South runner up a season ago, 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.
BACK FOR MORE
Among the Lancers’ four returning starters are 2023 All-South second-team selections Adriana Shipp-Davis and Anne-Hamilton LeRoy. Shipp-Davis is a preseason All-Big South first teamer this year after ranking fourth in the Big South in scoring at 13.9 points per game, while LeRoy earned a spot on the preseason second team following a season that saw her seventh in scoring (13.4).
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 (120, 34th), points (1,237, 97th in Division I and 153rd in all NCAA divisions), free throws made (343, 31st in Division I and 44th in all divisions) and free throws attempted (448, 31st in Division I and 43rd in all divisions.
POUTINE, PLEASE
Hailing from Montreal, Quebec, 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
Through the three games of 2023-24, fifth-year guard Anne-Hamilton LeRoy is tied for the Longwood career made-free-throws record (343), eighth in free-throw percentage (.766) and 15th in career points (1,237). LeRoy is just one make from the line away surpassing Marita Meldere‘s school record in the category of 343, set in 2005.
Additionally, senior guard Janay Turner turned in the seventh best single-season mark for free-throw percentage in 2022-23, hitting on .836 (92-of-110) of her freebies in her first season in Farmville after transferring from Norfolk State. 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 207 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 37 times in her career, leading the Lancers to an 18-19 record in those games. When Shipp-Davis goes for 20 or more, which she’s done eight times, Longwood has played to a 4-4 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.
TURNER PROVIDES SCORING
Aside from Anne-Hamilton LeRoy and Adriana Shipp-Davis, a third starter from the 2022-23 season who averaged double figures returns to the fold in Janay Turner. A 5-foot-8 senior guard from Chicago, Turner registered 10.9 points per game, scoring double digits in 16 of 29 contests. Turner matched her career high of 20 points, originally set at Norfolk State in the 2021-22 season, three times for the Lancers.
She poured in 20 to tie for game-high scoring honors with Shipp-Davis in a 70-68 win over Presbyterian on Jan. 21 and also had 20 points in a 59-50 road win at UNC Asheville on Feb. 25 to help the Lancers clinch a first-round bye in the Big South tournament.
WILLIAMS DEPENDABLE AT POINT
Senior Bailey Williams is also back for her second season for the Lancers after becoming a steady and reliable point guard in 2022-23. Williams averaged 4.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game while starting in all 30 contests. She played 30.8 minutes per game, a figure that was good for 13th overall in the Big South last season.
A strong defender as well, Williams finished 25th in the conference, swiping 1.1 steals per game. She twice collected a career high of four steals in a game last year – in an 80-70 home victory over Charleston Southern on Jan. 4 and a 97-64 win against USC Upstate on Feb. 15, also at Willett Hall.
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