KANSAS CITY, Mo. - For almost 33 minutes, Lee's men's basketball team could not get its high-powered scoring engines running. The Flames made a near miraculous comeback but fell just short in the Elite Eight round of the NAIA Men's National Basketball Championship on Saturday afternoon.
Azusa Pacific, always one of the top NAIA teams in any sport, jumped out to a 50-31 halftime lead against the frustrated Flames and then held on for a dramatic 75-70 victory. The loss saw the 28-7 Flames go down by a 69-45 margin with 7:16 remaining in the Final Eight battle at snowy Kansas City's Municipal Auditorium.
Coach Tommy Brown found the secret to finally get his team's engines running with exactly seven minutes left and slowly but surely Lee climbed right back into the battle against a Cougar team that was determined to use all the shot clock in the final minutes.
The run was started by a free-throw from senior Desmond Blue. Josh Nofflet followed with a field goal and Teddy Hardy and Jerel Blocker canned back-to-back treys and Lee had sliced the lead to 69-54 with 3:22 left. The comeback was far from over as Stephen McClellan got his three-ball going and carved the lead down to 12, 69-57.
Azusa played hard-ball and nailed a pair of freebies of their own to go back up 71-57. It really got interesting. Blocker scored a two-pointer and McClellan drained a three to make it 71-62. Coach Brown was using timeouts to kill the clock after each Lee score.
The last Flames run came in the final 44 seconds. Tyler Cutter drove all the way to the rack for two and McClellan drilled a third three to put Lee right back into the thick of the fight, 72-68. Azusa missed three of four free throws and then Blocker tallied again and thrilled the crowd to collapse the lead to only 73-70. With 16 seconds showing, the Cougars made a huge free throw to go on top 74-70, followed by a Lee turnover that ended the furious comeback.
Coach Brown was visually upset after his team failed to reach the Final Four for the second time in three years. "Give Azusa credit. They executed well and we failed to execute our game plan," said the deeply disappointed Brown. "We didn't run our stuff in the first half and they were a better shooting team than we were this afternoon."
The wing play of the Cougars (26-9) set the pace for the victory. Marshall Johnson scored 14 of his 16 points in the first half. Dominique Johnson got 10 of his 15 in the first 20, while post player Reggie Owens was a key factor the entire game. He tallied 16 points and grabbed eight rebounds.
"They punched us in the face in the first half and we didn't retaliate until the final seven or eight minutes," pointed out Brown. "Those guys are good. I thought our defense was soft in the first half but for the overall game they out-executed us. I really thought this might be the year we made a serious run at the championship."
Josh Nofflet carded 15 points and had four rebounds in his final performance as a Flame. He also dished off two assists and had a pair of steals. Jerel Blocker found the going tough in the first half and was held to only six points. He finished the heated action with 15 markers. The late 3-pointers by Stephen McClellan allowed the junior to score 10 points. Larriques Cunningham claimed 10 rebounds to go along with his four points. Chad James hit a three late and finished his career with five points as did Desmond Blue. Teddrick Hardy rounded out the night with seven points and Tyler Cutter contributed seven assists.
Three-point shooting turned out to be a huge difference in the contest. Lee went 0-7 from behind the arc in the first half and made just 6-of-29 for the game. They did shoot 44 percent from the field and 71 percent from the line. Brown's club also out-rebounded the Cougars 40-31. However, Lee turned the basketball over 17 times and forced 12 Azusa floor mistakes, most coming late in the game.
A great run ended for Brown and his Flames after a rocky 4-4 start. They went on to claim a share of the SSAC regular-season championship and advance all the way to the Elite Eight before being eliminated.