Big South Opening Round: Gardner-Webb Cruises Past Longwood

Gardner-Webb was probably the worst possible match up for the Longwood Lancers coming into the Big South Tournament. The Runnin' Bulldogs are balanced, have size, and dominated Longwood by 20 points in Farmville in January. Their size is a size and depth causes plenty of problems for a Lancers team who is not deep or big.

The Bulldogs shot out to a 39-26 lead at halftime after a tightly contested first half for the first ten minutes or so. Longwood ran into trouble when their top three scorers Tristan Carey, Lucas Woodhouse, and Karl Ziegler were all in early foul trouble. Carey, the Lancers leading scorer was held to just two points in the first half. Gardner-Webb's Jerome Hill, a Big South second teamer, had 10 rebounds in the first half, while Longwood has 11 as a team.

Gardner-Webb had no problems in the second half and eventually took home a 81-65 win lead by Hill with 12 points and 16 rebounds. All in all the Bulldogs out-rebounded the Lancers 42 to 22. All-Freshman team member Tyrell Newsome had the high scoring mark for the Bulldogs with 15 points.

The Bulldogs will now take on VMI Friday night at 8 PM in a rematch of a quadruple overtime thriller from earlier this year where the Keydets hit three buzzer beaters to beat Gardner-Webb.

Longwood's Tristan Carey, a senior, surpassed the 1,500 point plateau in his final game as a Lancer. Coach Jayson Gee will welcome in eight newcomers next year, including former Tulane big man Lotanna Nwogbo and UAB transfer Quincy Taylor.