The third-seeded Lee men's basketball team saw its historic 2020-21 season come to an end on Sunday night in the Round of 32 of the NCAA Tournament falling to Gulf South Conference rival and No. 2 seed Alabama Huntsville, 73-66.
The Chargers jumped out to an early 18-point lead before the Flames used a 15-4 run over the last 4:32 of the half to cut the deficit to seven at the intermission, 35-28.
The second half saw a few runs by Lee as GSC East Player of the Year, Quay Kennedy drilled a 3-pointer with 14:59 left to make it a five-point game. That's the closest the Flames would get however as UAH would never relinquish the lead as it advances to the Sweet 16 and the South Region Final on Tuesday against top-seeded Flagler.
"First off credit to Alabama Huntsville.
They have a great program and they jumped out on us early and they were the better team tonight," said Lee head coach Bubba Smith. "Our guys kept fighting and I'm really proud of our team and the season that we had. We lost two high level players from last year's team in Ryan Montgomery and Parker Suedekum so I'm sure there were some people who didn't think we'd be back, but these guys believed and we got back and won our program's first NCAA Tournament game so I'm just really proud of my guys and the determination they showed all season. We never had to coach effort with this team."
Quay Kennedy played all but one minute in the contest and finished with a double-double of 23 points and 11 rebounds. Jayce Willingham finished up a stellar postseason performance with 13 points and seven rebounds. Makhi McGuire added 12 and Michael McGuirk poured in 10 points and five rebounds.
"This team just really came together as a family," said Kennedy. "We just kept battling and never gave up on each other. We have a great relationship with our coaches, and I love the culture that we are building here at Lee."
Lee got things going late in the first half and shot 44 percent from the field while draining 6 of 15 3-pointers. Shots were tougher to come by in the second half for the Flames as they converted just 8 of 33 (24 percent) from the field. For the game Lee settled for 32.8 percent shooting from the field and 28.2 percent from beyond the arc. Both teams finished with 38 rebounds. Lee dished off 12 assists and committed just nine turnovers in the contest.
"We played back to backs all year so I thought we were ready for tonight even after a physical game with Georgia Southwestern last night. But we know what UAH is about and we have a lot of respect for them and they executed well tonight and we just dug ourselves too big of a hole."
Sam Orf led the Chargers with 22 points. Seth Swalve added 17 and six rebounds while Riley Webster drilled four triples and finished with 14 points. JJ Kaplan posted a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.
"I think these guys are just scratching the surface on what we can become. These are good kids, they do well academically, they a pleasure to be around and they work extremely hard. They are talented guys but they are even better people. It was just a really special group to coach," added Smith.
The Flames end the season at 15-6 while The Chargers improve to 15-3.