55 Points in Final 3:55 Provides Quite a Finish for Liberty, Longwood

The last time the Liberty Flames and Longwood Lancers met in Lynchburg back on January 22nd, Liberty cruised to a 74-47 Big South Conference victory. Last night, Longwood equaled their scoring output by halftime. Not bad, right? That isn’t the best part of this one–the two teams combined for 55 points over the final 3:55 of the game and the Lancers held on in Farmville, 102-101.

It marked the first time since 11/11/11 (VMI‘s 103-100 win over the Citadel) that two Division I teams both reached the century mark in regulation.

Thanks to the frantic race to the buzzer, a big Lancers lead dwindled into a one-point game by the time it was all said and done.

At the final media timeout, the 3:55 mark, Longwood led 80-68. Liberty was still down big in the final minutes but turned it around in a hurry thanks to Longwood’s struggles from the free throw line (5-10 in the final 54 seconds). Poor free throw shooting coupled with Liberty’s 4-4 from beyond the arc in the final 1:20 closed the gap to two points with five seconds to play, but they would get no closer.

Longwood guard Tristan Carey had a career-high 40 points to go along with 12 rebounds in the win. Carey was 12-22 shooting including 8-15 from three-point range. Jeylani Dublin and Michael Kessens each had 17 points for Longwood while Davon Marshall‘s 31 points paced the Flames.

Neither team is having a particularly good year. The Flames fell to 9-19 while the Lancers improved to 6-22 in their inaugural season in the Big South. Fortunately for both squads, every member of the Big South will earn a trip to Myrtle Beach for it’s postseason tournament beginning March 5th.