Nearly one year ago, Longwood found light at the end of the dark tunnel of Division I independence.

The Big South extended an invitation to the Lancers on January 23, 2012 to become the league's 12th member.

All that will finally become a tangible asset on Saturday for the Longwood men's basketball team when it hosts Coastal Carolina in a home conference game at 2 p.m.

Though it won't be the first official Big South game for Longwood (the women's soccer team proved LU belongs in the league back in the fall, and the women's basketball team defeated Radford last week and was scheduled to host Gardner-Webb – a team it beat in a “non-conference” game earlier this year – on Thursday night), it will be the first league contest for what's considered to be the flagship program at the school.

For the first time since a 69-57 victory over Coker College on February 25, 2003 – about three weeks before the first shots were fired in Operation Iraqi Freedom – the Longwood men will play in a game that counts in the standings of something other than ESPN's Bottom 10.

See. Being the flagship, or bell cow, isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Sure, the air is fresher and the view changes a little more often, but you're also the first in line to be turned into hamburgers.

Ten years of taking guarantee game beatings to Big 10 and Atlantic Coast Conference schools – played at their place in order to help balance the budget for the entire athletics department – will begin to pay off in games that could lead to postseason play in the Big Dance.

That's right. Longwood could wind up on your pool sheet.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. The NCAA Tournament hopes of all Big South Conference teams come down to a week in Myrtle Beach, but the league's regular-season champ is assured of a spot in the NIT should it not win the conference tournament, so the regular season does count for something more than pride.

To further temper expectations, Monday's home loss to Fairleigh Dickinson shows that the Lancers will have some growing up to do before it can really be considered to be a serious contender in the Big South championship picture.

Oh, for some timely “injuries” to a few starters that still had a red shirt to burn this time last year.

Oh well.

Water under the bridge.

Even so, this is a young team (in the true sense, not just a kind term for “bad and not getting better anytime soon”) and their chances at reaching the NCAA Tournament are much better than they have been since the Lancers were playing Lees McRae, Belmont Abbey and Queens to reach a somewhat smaller Big Dance in 2003.

It's hard to believe it's been that long since Longwood's games carried anywhere close to this much weight.

There have been a lot of sunrises and sunsets since the Lancers battled for Division II supremacy in the since renamed Carolinas-Virginia Athletic Conference.

They're now battling for Division I supremacy in a conference made up of schools from the Carolinas and Virginia.

Okay, maybe some things have come full circle, but it's a much larger circle, and a better fitting one, at that.

What a long, strange trip it's been.

But sit back. A new ride is beginning, and this time, at least, the destination is a clear one.

First stop: Myrtle Beach. Next stop: ???