The Overtime Report: Effort

Well, I’m a bit late posting this piece due to internet issues at home because of the snowpocalypse. As we all know by now, the Longwood men’s basketball team fell handily to visiting Winthrop on Wednesday night in Willett Hall. Winthrop dominated the entire contest and I’d say It was just as bad, if not worse, than the Gardner Webb game a few weeks ago.

I don’t have a lot of new information to add. Our Instant Reactions piece pretty much summed up the game. The effort and energy shown by this team has deflated the fan base. The only positive is the future we have to look forward to and Coach Jayson Gee’s elaborated on that during his post game interview with Scott Bacon on WVHL 92.3.

Coach Gee challenged the underclassmen to perform as the season draws to an end. Coach was quite direct and, in my opinion, alerted everyone that better days are ahead. He basically said that better players are headed to Longwood and if the current players don’t perform, they won’t be playing very much. If that doesn’t motivate the team to focus and play harder, i’m not sure there’s much hope heading into the tournament.

Now I’m not pointing out specific players for a reason. I think this is a team issue. As a whole, players are not competing like we are accustomed to. With that being said, the game itself was a nightmare. It personally upset me and frustrated me more than I expected. At the very least, we as fans have gotten used to a hard playing product on the floor this season. Wednesday was not that.

I then had to drive 2 hours back to Chesterfield (usually takes about an hour and 5 minutes or so). I’m fortunate I didn’t get into an accident. I almost slid off the road a few times. I fishtailed a couple more times. It was rough.

Now, I allude to my experience of getting home from the game but there were others in my same situation. The point is not that I personally had to endure terrible conditions. The point is that when you develop a culture around a program, the expectations are raised. You now have alumni and other fans traveling to see your games. Those same fans use resources and spend money to come see the games. The fans exhaust a lot of ENERGY to come see Longwood basketball games. Alumni and fans know where this program was just 5 short years ago. We have seen the negatives and we understand the improvements that have been made. We have lived it.

Those same fans expect Longwood athletics to take pride in representing the university and understand that playing Division I ball is a privilege. Be proud to display “Longwood” across your chest and receive a valuable education.

All we ask is that Longwood teams play with energy, effort, and pride. In other words, as the current fad explains, “turn up or transfer.”