Lancers are again dancers, defeating Asheville to win second Big South title in three years

 

Longwood coach Griff Aldrich and guard Walyn Napper share an embrace during Sunday's Big South championship game.  (Photo:  Longwood Athletics)

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HIGH POINT, N.C. – “The bad things don’t make you.”

Longwood coach Griff Aldrich had just spent a press conference, a weekend – honestly, most of a season – praising guard Walyn Napper for his development and leadership from last season to this one.

There were plenty of bad things Napper may have referenced – the 10 conference losses, the struggles last season, and so many things not known to the public – on which one might dwell. Instead, Napper and his Lancers had a lot of good things on which to focus. The Lancers had, after all, just won four games in nine days and three in three days – with two of them against league champion High Point – to win a title. Napper was named the MVP of the tournament, in which Longwood was crowned the champion for the second time in three seasons.

Napper – and his coach – had a lot to say about the experience.

“I give all my thanks to God. He blessed me on this journey,” Napper said. “I came here last year not knowing what to expect. It was rough for me a little bit. I stuck with Coach and Coach stuck with me. He trusted me and I trusted him. We built a bond and we’re here now.”

“Walyn Napper has literally – and D.A. (Houston) – have literally put these guys (on their backs) and grabbed hold of this team and told them what they’re going to do and how they’re going to do it,” Aldrich said. “The leadership that you saw over the past couple of days has been phenomenal.”

‘To see Walyn do this – one of the great joys in coaching is getting to see people grow. I’ve never seen anybody grow as much. Even if we had lost in the tournament, Walyn’s growth over the past two years has been phenomenal – honestly, as a young man. He’s always been talented. My hope is that he sees where he can go and who he can take with him when he’s operating at his best.”

The Lancers’ ascent up the Big South table was far more deliberate than the one up the ladder Sunday to collect pieces of the championship net. Longwood dropped 7-of-8 games during a particularly brutal conference stretch, essentially bisected by a 10-point result over Presbyterian. Longwood then won three straight, including decisions over fourth-seeded Winthrop, Presbyterian, and the same Asheville team it would conquer Sunday.

Longwood then dropped two more games to Radford and Gardner-Webb – it trailed by as many as 22 in that latter game – to fall to 5-10 in the league. The Lancers needed a late bucket from Napper to beat High Point in the final shot of the regular season and avoid the tournament’s play-in game. Fifth-seeded Longwood then ran the table against three of the league’s top four seeds to allow them to load the trophy onto the bus back to Farmville.

“We’re blessed with incredibly high-character kids,” Aldrich said. “This team has wanted to be good. I really struggled with helping them figure out how to compete each and every day. They figured it out at the right time. I wish I could say it was me, but it wasn’t. It was Walyn, and D.A., and Michael (Christmas), and the rest of the guys.”

Center Szymon Zapala was one of the “rest of the guys” about whom Aldrich spoke. The seven-footer scored 34 points and snared 13 caroms across the semis and finals. Those performances were both huge for different reasons. In the semis against High Point, Zapala helped increase foul pressure on High Point post players Juslin Bodo Bodo and Pavlo Dziuba, then took over for a key stretch. On Sunday, Zapala picked up extra minutes in the absence of starting forward Ellijah Tucker, who was unavailable for undisclosed reasons.

“Obviously, I talked to Elijah,” Zapala said. “All he said was to go win the championship. We all said before the game that we had to do it before him and that was our mindset from the beginning.”

“We had a brother who wasn’t here today, Elijah Tucker,” Napper said. “We just said we were going to do this for him. We were going to come out and hit them first and just be dogs from the get-go.”

“Coach said to play with an edge and to be committed. Coach Marty said before the game, ‘Don’t wait. Don’t see how the game’s going to go. Take it to them first.’   The whole team is a bunch of dogs. We’ve been dogs all year. We may have had a dip in conference (play), but you stay positive through the good and the bad. We just took it to them and we dominated from start to finish.”

To Napper’s point, the Lancers trailed once all day. Toyaz Solomon knocked down a mid-range jumper for Asheville at the 18:59 mark, only for Christmas to drop a triple 19 seconds later and give the Lancers an advantage they would never relinquish. Zapala would convert a layup almost five minutes later that would put Longwood ahead by double digits. Asheville would never again get back to single digits from there.

“That was just an amazing performance by the guys,” Aldrich said. “We talked about effort, toughness, and execution. I think that was the difference. We came out and absolutely played with an aggressive mindset. We played with incredible activity. I thought our effort was tremendous. I thought we were extremely tough. I’m not sure we couldn’t have played another 40 minutes, with the way they were playing.”

Five Lancers finished in double figures. Christmas paced all Lancer scorers with 18, hitting 6-of-10 from the field, 2-of-4 from deep, and 4-of-4 from the line. Zapala added 17 and seven boards, with John-John Massie and Jesper Granlund booking 11 apiece. Napper missed a triple-double by three boards, scoring 10 and dishing 11 helpers. The final assist came on a Christmas bucket, giving Napper the championship game assists record that broke the previous mark held by Winthrop’s Chris Gaynor since 2007.

The Lancers shot an eye-popping 60 percent (31-for-52) on the afternoon, adding 54 percent (7-for-13) from distance. Longwood scored 46 of its 85 points in the paint.

Longwood now claims its second Big South championship in three seasons and awaits its postseason destination on Selection Sunday next week. Aldrich considered after the game the impact of the championship on the school and program.

“I think we have really strived – President (Taylor) Reveley, (athletic director) Tim Hall – we’ve really wanted to build a program and not just a team,” Aldrich said. “Continuity is important. Taking steps. Investment. This has been an institutional effort. I think this is extremely rewarding for a lot of people, not just the guys and women in the men’s basketball department, but in a lot of departments, where a lot of people have worked really hard to try to build this program.”

“Two (championships) in three (years) is phenomenal. To also think about where we were when the journey started – I thank God. I think His hand has been on us, and I think he has blessed us at a lot of different turns. We’ve been really fortunate to recruit really good kids who have represented us well. We’ve been fortunate to have things go our way. It’s huge.”

Of course, leave it to Napper to put the finest point on the day after reiterating his thankfulness that he and his teammates fought through those bad things he referenced.

“Longwood is here.”