DaQuan Smith and Kenyon Giles powered Radford to an early lead en route to a 69-58 win over Longwood on Thursday night.
With an ESPNU national TV audience looking on, Smith muscled home 21 points, and Giles added 20, while draining a variety of difficult jumpers, to quiet a boisterous, passionate Lancer crowd.
That was enough to fend off a Longwood (13-5, 1-2 Big South) comeback effort keyed by Walyn Napper and Szymon Zapala, who combined for 31 points.
Radford (11-6, 1-1 Big South) staked itself to an early lead by hitting five of its first six shots and shooting 55.6 percent (15-of-27) from the floor in the first 20 minutes.
Giles had nine points in the first half.
“I thought we got outcompeted,” Longwood coach Griff Aldrich said. “It was very clear over the course of the game. We had stretches where we outcompeted them, where we clawed back into the game. But the two key takeaways: we’re not playing hard enough, and we’re not executing at the level that we need to. It was very disappointing, to start the game down 10-2, and it was like we weren’t ready to play. My fault.”
Radford extended the lead to 16 points before a 7-2 Longwood run trimmed the Radford lead to 33-22 at the break.
After halftime, Zapala sparked Longwood with five quick points. He finished an and-one under the rim to jumpstart a 9-2 run. Elijah Tucker capped the Longwood flurry with a huge putback slam that made the students roar as Longwood cut the lead to 35-31.
Smith answered with a layup the next time down the floor to stem the tide. He had 13 points in the second half, and the Highlanders pushed the lead back to 11.
Napper started to head up for Longwood, and he repeatedly attacked the basket. He sliced his way to 13 points after halftime to help Longwood hang around. His foul shots with 10:27 to go cut the Radford lead to 46-41.
Giles took over down the stretch and buried three triples, each of increasing difficulty, to help Radford fend off the Lancers in the final six minutes.
“We have to compete harder than the other team,” Aldrich said. “We are not good enough to just go out and play the game and hope to win. And that’s what we’re doing right now. And if we don’t elevate our level of competition, and if we don’t elevate our level of focus on executing details—we turned the ball over 15 times. That’s been our emphasis the past two days. And we come down on fast breaks and we whip it around. If we don’t change that, we’re not going to be a very good basketball team. It’s going to be a very hard conference season. Execution is the highest form of competition, and we are not competing at a high level right now.”
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Chris Graham
