Bulldogs Close 2015 With Road Win at Longwood

THE RUNDOWN

Score: Asheville 70 – Longwood 61

Teams: Asheville (9-5, 2-0 BSC)

Longwood (4-11, 0-2 BSC)

Location: Willett Hall/Farmville, VA

FARMVILLE, VA – Visiting UNC Asheville dug out of a 13-point deficit in the opening minutes to earn a 70-61 victory over Longwood to close out the 2015 calendar year with a win. The Bulldogs have now opened Big South Conference play at least 2-0 in four of the last five seasons after today's win.

THE TURNING POINT

Down 16-3 after the first five minutes, the Bulldogs responded with a run of their own, going on a 15-2 run to knot the game at 18-all with 9:12 remaining in the first half. Up five at halftime, Asheville saw Longwood open the second half on a 4-0 run before answering the bell and setting up the remainder of the game.

NOTABLES

-Asheville had four players finish in double-figures, led by Dylan Smith's game-high 20 points. Smith hit three of the Bulldogs' five total three-pointers on the afternoon. Kevin Vannatta notched 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting, while Ahmad Thomas finished with 11 points and Dwayne Sutton added 10 points.

-After starting the afternoon with five turnovers in the first five minutes, Asheville eventually forced Longwood into 27 turnovers while finishing with 21 turnovers of their own.

-The Bulldogs pulled down 39 rebounds, including 26 on the defensive glass, as they won the rebounding battle for the first time in the last four games. Asheville's bench outscored Longwood 29-12 in the win.

-Asheville finished the afternoon shooting 40 percent (23-of-57), while Longwood notched a 45 percent mark (26-of-58). The Bulldogs went to the line 27 times, hitting 70 percent, while they put Longwood on the line only seven times (4-of-7, 57 percent).

-Longwood had four players score in double-figures in the loss, led by Tra'vaughn White's team-high 16 point afternoon.

QUOTABLES FROM HEAD COACH NICK McDEVITT

On the game – “Sometimes it's not always pretty, but you always want to win the game. 48 total turnovers today, so it certainly wasn't pretty out there but the number we care about is that final score. Fortunately we weren't hanging our heads because of 21 turnovers, and were able to force 27 turnovers on the other end. It wasn't a good job of handling the job on our part, but a great job of playing defense and outrebounding a team with good size and good athletes.”

On responding to the slow start – “That's two games in a row where this has happened. A couple games in a row where we haven't come out of the locker room as intense as we need to be. We have to do a better job of being ready to go from the tip. I was proud of our team, there was no panic. We continues to play hard and grind out a road win in league play.”

On starting BSC play 2-0 – “Continuing this road trip with another win won't be easy. I don't care if you win by one or by 20, winning on the road in league play is difficult. Although we didn't play well tonight, the main objective was to get a win and we did that. Now we turn our attention to Liberty and can't look down the road to the next game or the next one. It's go to Lynchburg and do what we came up here to do.”

UP NEXT

-Following today's win, the Bulldogs open 2016 at Liberty Saturday afternoon to complete the two-game road swing in Virginia. Saturday's game is a 2:00 p.m. tipoff. Asheville returns home to take on Winthrop on Wednesday, January 6.