HPU WBB Travels to Longwood on Monday

HIGH POINT, N.C. – The High Point University women’s basketball team will look to get back to its winning ways at Longwood on Monday in Willett Hall.

The Panthers (13-8, 9-3) will look to make it eight straight wins over the Lancers (3-18, 3-9) after their 81-60 win on Dec. 2. The Purple & White has been victorious in all of tits meetings with Longwood since the Lancers joined the Big South in the 2010-11 season.

Last Time Out:
HPU couldn’t find its offensive rhythm on Saturday and fell 58-41 to Liberty in the Millis Center. The Panthers trailed by as many as 10 in the first half before cutting the deficit to two at the half. However, the team couldn’t get enough shots to fall in the second half to complete the comeback.

Redshirt-senior Stacia Robertson tallied her eighth double-double of the season with 11 points and 11 rebounds. She added four blocks and three steals on the defensive end.

Fellow senior forward Latrice Phelps chipped in with 11 points while sophomore DeAnneisha Jackson added eight points and eight rebounds off of the bench. That trio combined to score 73 percent of the team’s points. Senior Ashante Richard was the only other Panther to make multiple shots and finished with nine points.

The Purple & White shot a season-low 20.8 percent (10-of-48), but earned 29 trips to the line and hit 72 percent (21-of-29) from the charity stripe. On the defensive end, HPU held the Flames to 37 percent (22-of-59) shooting and a paltry 15 percent (2-of-13) from 3-point land.

The Panthers were outrebounded 47-39, but were able to pulled down 15 rebounds and earned 10 second-chance points. For the second time in as many meetings HPU forced Liberty into 20 turnovers.

The Opponent:

The Lancers opened the season 0-11, but have gone 3-7 with three of those losses by single-digits in their last 10 games. They are 2-2 in their last four home games with one of the losses coming by one point to Winthrop.

The team is coming off of a 12-point loss at Campbell on Saturday. Junior Raven Williams led Longwood with 17 points and eight rebounds. Junior Kyndal Skersick with 15 points and junior Deborah Headen with 11 points joined Williams in double figures.

The Campbell defense held the Lancers to just 32 percent (21-of-65) shooting from the floor. Longwood was only able to knock down 26 percent (5-of-19) from beyond the arc while going just 9-of-14 (64 percent) from the line.

The Camels also controlled the boards grabbing a plus-21 (51-30) margin on the glass. Rebounding has been an issue for the undersized Lancers all season as they have a minus-12.7 rebounding margin per game. Longwood is grabbing just 9.75 offensive rebounds per game in league play.

The team makes up for it with its 3-point shooting averaging a conference-best 6.52 made 3-pointers per contest. Despite having the third-best 3-point shooting percentage (31 percent) in the league, Longwood have the Big South’s lowest overall shooting percentage of 35 percent.

The Lancers have the best turnover margin in the league during conference play with a plus-3.83 margin per game.

Panther Notes:

• The Panthers have a 19-11 advantage in the all-time series with the Lancers. HPU has won all seven contests with Longwood since 2010-11 when the Lancers joined the Big South conference.

• In the first meeting of the year the Purple & White earned a 81-60 win by holding the Lancers to 30 percent shooting. Sophomore Kaylah Keys drilled five 3-pointers en route to posting a game-high 21 points.

• The offense is shooting at a record pace as well. The team enters the game hitting 41.5 percent of its shots. The Panthers are second in the Big South in behind Coastal Carolina and are on pace to best the program record of 41.3 set during the 2010-11 season.

• Redshirt-senior Stacia Robertson has upped her pace lately. The forward is averaging 16.6 points, 8.9 rebounds, 3.9 blocks, 2.8 steals and 2.5 assists in her last eight games.

• Behind forwards Stacia Robertson and DeAnneisha Jackson, HPU sits at 22nd in the nation with 5.5 blocked shots a game.

• High Point hasn’t lost back-to-back league games since taking consecutive road losses at Gardner-Webb and Presbyterian on Feb. 21 and Feb. 23, 2013. The team has gone 34 straight conference games without taking two straight loses.

Next Up:

HPU will continue its busy week at Presbyterian (Thursday, Feb. 5) before coming home to host Charleston Southern (Saturday, Feb. 7).