Dancing Double: Longwood women punch their own ticket to March Madness

By mid-afternoon, Sunday was already the greatest day in Longwood basketball history.

By midnight – 8 hours and one more dominant Big South championship game victory later — it was twice as good.

Get ready for a busy March, Lancer Nation. Your women’s basketball team is also headed to its first-ever NCAA Division I Tournament.

These Lancer women aren’t just sneaking in to the Big Dance. They smashed a top-seeded Campbell team that had beaten Longwood twice during the regular season 86-47– cementing that transformation of a Longwood program under head coach Rebecca Tillett that in just three seasons went from 3-27 to Big South Tournament champions and now a chance to play in March Madness.

“It feels like time slows down a little,” a hoarse Tillett said of the surprisingly relaxed final minutes. “You’re just so excited that the players are able to experience that. And you think about all the people that have poured into this – support staff, administration, the Farmville community, Longwood community. It takes everybody to win a championship.”

Play like they did Sunday, and Longwood won’t be an easy draw for anybody once the NCAA Tournament begins.

Kayla McMakin scored 22 points and Tournament MVP Tra’Dayja Smith added 21 on perfect 5-for-5 3-point shooting in a stunningly one-sided matchup between the league’s top two teams.

Longwood actually put this one away long before midnight.

Five minutes after the 8:30 p.m. tipoff on ESPNU, Longwood (21-11) was already up 17-0. They hit 10 of 13 shots in the first quarter, including all four 3-point attempts, and by halftime had stretched the lead to 38-13. The defense wasn’t bad either; Longwood forced 14 Campbell (23-7) turnovers, and held the Camels to just 2 points in the second quarter. Then Longwood scored the first 7 points after intermission and was soon up 50-15.

Cheered on at Bojangles Coliseum by a strong contingent of fans including members of the Longwood men’s team who stuck around after their own commanding 79-58 Big South title game win over Winthrop earlier Sunday, the Lancers had plenty of time in the fourth quarter to celebrate and play their reserves.

It was almost hard to believe this was the same team that lost twice to Campbell in the regular season – once by 28 points. It isn’t. Over the last few weeks, Longwood has found a higher gear – and upped its game on defense.

Winners now of nine straight, including a comparably dominant semi-final win Saturday over UNC Asheville, they left little doubt the best team in the Big South will represent the conference – and all of Lancer Nation – in the NCAA Tournament.

“They were so good for so long,” Tillett said of the Camels. The team’s trick was it didn’t even say the word “Campbell” over the back half of the season– but focused relentlessly on improving enough to beat them.

“(Campbell) did have our number,” Tillett said. “And we’ve been working every day since the first loss to figure that out in every practice and in every game. Because this is where we wanted to be. Sometimes things have a way of working out, and for these guys did.”

It was a remarkable finale to an unforgettable weekend for Lancer Nation, which watched six wins in four days between the two teams. Fans, cheerleaders, the Stampede pep band, and students turned the Bojangles Coliseum into Willett Hall South – bringing notably more noise than other conference members much closer to Charlotte.

The outcome – not just the results but the two commanding championship game wins on national television – was all Longwood could have hoped for. Only three times in Big South history has the same institution claimed the men’s and women’s basketball titles in the same year. Only once before had two teams at the same institution each won the regular season and tournament titles in the same year.

Tillet and men’s head coach Griff Aldrich were introduced together as Longwood head coaches on the same day in April, 2018. Now, on the same day nearly four years later, both advanced to the NCAA Tournament.

“We both use different words, but it’s a really similar process,” she said of the two coaches’ combined success. “I can’t wait for both of us to be able to really enjoy this with our teams.”

Now both Lancer teams head back to Farmville to celebrate, rest – and start getting ready for March Madness. They’ll find out who they play in one week, on Selection Sunday.