Editor’s note: This story was published prior to the Longwood University women’s basketball team’s game Saturday against visiting High Point University.

By Chris Cook

LongwoodLancers.com

It’s two hours to tipoff, and Rebecca Tillett sits alone in her office in Tabb Hall. Her face is illuminated by the glow of her computer monitor, her eyes transfixed on a snippet of game film that she scrubs back and forth, frame by frame.

Within the next two hours, she will don her trademark black suit coat and occupy her position at the end of the Longwood University women’s basketball team’s bench for an 11 a.m. home game against the premier team in the Big South Conference. But for now, sporting a gray Longwood hoodie and a ponytail, she’s squeezing in a precious last few minutes of film on that opponent, reigning Big South champion Radford University.

“I always feel like there’s some last-minute detail I’ll catch, something that will help me call plays during the game,” she says.

This is only a brief glimpse into the game-day routine of Tillett, a self-professed film junkie who, even 20-plus years into her coaching career, can’t escape the allure of analyzing what makes high-quality basketball teams tick. To be the best, she says, you have to scout the best.

Now only two years into her tenure as Longwood’s head women’s basketball coach, Tillett has transformed the Lancers into a team worth studying.

Buoyed by an impact recruiting class of seven newcomers and a returning core of veterans, the rebuilding project Tillett chose to undertake in Farmville has taken several sizable steps forward in 2019-20. After spending her first year laying the foundation during an grueling three-win season in 2018-19, Tillett now has the Lancers off to an 8-7 start. They lead the conference in scoring, and at 4-2 in conference play are off to their best start to Big South play since 2012-13. Now fourth in the Big South and only two games out of first place, the Lancers are proving that their new-look squad that debuted in November, grew in December, and broke out in January is for real.

“There’s a toughness about them,” Tillett said. “And there’s a youthful innocence of the newness of being together. They’re still figuring each other out on the court, but they do it in such a positive way, and they’re rooting for each other to grow. Every woman in the program has something to work on, including the staff. You can see everyone rooting for each other to do that.”

And with six wins in their past eight games, they’re only getting better.

The second version of Longwood women’s basketball under Tillett is laden with talent, both old and new. The Lancers have inarguably the Big South’s top freshman in Kyla McMakin and passer in Tra’Dayja Smith, and they’re anchored by one of the league’s best all-around players in senior forward Dayna Rouse.

They have the Big South’s leaders in scoring in McMakin (16.8 points per game), assists in Smith (6.3 assists per game), field goal percentage in Rouse (.527) and blocks in both sophomore Akila Smith (2.3 per game) and Rouse (1.8 per game). They’re among the NCAA’s top 10 in blocks per game and lead the Big South in both points per game and field goal percentage (.400).

“I don’t know that I could have predicted this,” said Tillett of the year-two breakthrough. “But now that we’re in it, it feels so right.”

To watch Longwood women’s basketball this season is a master class in team chemistry. That goes both off and on the court, where the group operates on opposite ends of a spectrum that spans from goofy and fun-loving to intense and cut-throat competitive. Whether they’re battling opponents in Willett Hall or each other in “Name That Tune,” their cohesion is obvious.

“With this group, so much of it has to do with their chemistry,” Tillett said. “You want to recruit people, coaches and players that you think are going to fit together and mesh well. Sometimes you get lucky with how well they connect, and this group certainly has a special quality about them.

“As all coaches do, we try to plan to make it happen like this. A lot of things we’ve done have helped it, but I think the biggest thing is the women making a decision together, that everyone on the roster is genuinely pulling in the same direction toward our goals.”

But when they take the court, there’s a switch, says the senior Rouse, and once it’s thrown, Longwood is a tough team to stop.

“It’s funny because I feel like in any moment it can be one player that turns everything around for the team,” Rouse said. “If things aren’t going well, everyone’s so talented individually that it can take just one person to just cause a spark. It’s just really special and rare, especially in this conference, to have a team that’s so talented with so many players who have their own unique skill set.”

Many opponents have experienced Longwood’s overload of talent first-hand, including four of the team’s first six to open Big South play. The Lancers have already taken down Gardner-Webb University, Presbyterian College, Charleston Southern University and the University of South Carolina Upstate, and they were a buzzer-beater away from upsetting reigning Big South champion and preseason favorite Radford University in a 62-61 loss on Jan. 14, which drew a record crowd of 1,812 to Willett Hall.

And in a persistent reminder to the rest of the Big South that something new is brewing in Farmville, the Lancers have also been a consistent presence in the Big South’s weekly award announcements with a conference-best seven recognitions. Rouse, a Preseason All-Big South First-Team selection, has claimed two of those as Big South Player of the Week, while McMakin and Anne-Hamilton LeRoy have combined for four Freshman of the Week citations, the program’s most ever since Longwood joined the Big South.

But the numbers, victories and awards only tell one part of the story. Underlying that on-court success is a burgeoning culture of toughness, investment and unflinching pursuit of excellence that Tillett has set out to establish from day one. It’s a brand and an identity that has followed her throughout her successful coaching career in the high school and college ranks, and now that the Lancers have embraced it, it has a name: Arête.

“Arête means excellence of any kind, or the pursuit of fulfilling one’s true potential,” Tillett explained. “It’s a Greek word, and we don’t have a direct translation for it in English. There’s a character element embedded in it as well.

“For us it’s about excellence of any kind — in practice settings, the classroom, our interactions with each other. It’s important to us that every conversation we have together, teammate-to-teammate, coach-to-teammate, coach-to-coach, it all influences this entire organization. If we’re deliberate and intentional with how we interact, we have a chance to do something special. Arête has been the overarching theme.”

That word is spoken in meetings, huddles and practice. It’s represented by bracelets each player wears, and it’s embodied in the way the resurgent Lancers have carried themselves this season. It’s what motivates Tillett to spend her last few moments before a game analyzing film, trying to find the one detail that could mean the difference between a one-point loss and an upset win.

“All the coaches just hold us to really high standards in everything,” Rouse said. “We’re constantly reminded to just strive for more, and even after a really good win, we’ve had to learn to keep our level of intensity just as high at practice the next day. We can’t be satisfied, and we don’t want to be satisfied just because we won a game. We’re trying to strive for so much more than that, and Coach always reminds us that we’re trying to make history. That’s arête, and that’s the level we hold ourselves (to).”

That commitment to excellence was a major appeal to the seven women who made up the class of newcomers that has transformed Longwood’s roster, says LeRoy. She was the second player to commit to Longwood as part of Tillett’s first full recruiting class after fellow freshman Adriana Shipp kicked it off, and she’s delivered a sterling freshman resume that includes 10.6 points, 2.5 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game.

“It just felt right,” LeRoy said. “I wanted to be a part of the change in culture and the change in the team. Coach Tillett’s just awesome. I love the way she carries herself and leads our group. It’s a lot of fun, and I definitely made the right decision.”

LeRoy has taken her turn in the spotlight many times throughout the season, as have more than a half dozen of her teammates. She could do so again this Saturday when Longwood will go for its fifth Big South victory of the year against High Point. That game will tip off at 3 p.m., most likely mere minutes after Tillett finishes watching film.