ESPNU Selects High Point at Longwood as Jan. 16 Wildcard Game
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – ESPNU has selected the
High Point at Longwood men’s basketball contest as its second Big South Wildcard broadcast of the 2024-25 season, it was announced today by the Big South Conference office. The game will move from its current Wednesday, Jan. 15 date to Thursday, Jan. 16 and will tip at 7:00pm inside the Joan Perry Brock Center in Farmville, Va.
The match-up will mark the third all-time “Wildcard” meeting between the squads on ESPNU, but the first in Farmville. High Point won last year’s nationally-televised matchup, 93-76 on Feb. 1 in the Qubein Center, while the Lancers prevailed 78-71 on Feb. 17, 2022. The Panthers will make their second appearance this season in the Big South’s ESPNU Wildcard series and 12th overall, while Longwood has appeared nine times previously, including three times each the past two seasons.
High Point enters tonight’s Big South opener with a league-best 12-3 record, and is also tops in the conference in the NET at 144. The Panthers are ranked No. 17 in the latest Collegeinsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 poll. High Point, the Big South’s preseason favorite, paces the league in scoring defense (64.8), free throw percentage (75.0) and field goal defense (41.3 percent allowed). The Panthers are led offensively by
D’Maurian Williams (14.9 ppg), Big South Preseason Player of the Year
Kezza Giffa (14.1) and
Kimani Hamilton (13.2).
Longwood is just behind the Panthers in both the standings at 11-4 and the NET at 167. The Lancers have received votes in the Collegeinsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 the last seven weeks, and own non-conference victories over Morgan State, Milwaukee, UT Martin, Binghamton, UAB, Campbell and N.C. Central.
Michael Christmas is Longwood’s top scorer (11.7) and rebounder (4.6), while
Colby Garland has contributed 11.5 points per contest.
This is the 12th year of the Big South’s ESPNU Wildcard series, which again features six Thursday primetime broadcasts –- Jan. 2 (Radford at High Point), Jan. 16 (High Point at Longwood), Feb. 6 (9:00pm), Feb. 13 (7:00pm), Feb. 20 (7:00pm) and Feb. 27 (7:00pm) -- that are selected 14-21 days in advance. A total of 53 games have been played in the series that began in 2013-14, and while the home teams are 33-20, the 53 contests have been decided by an average of 9.52 points, with 30 (56.6 percent) of those being decided by single-digits.