Beyuan Hendricks and Tim Vaughn both had career days as the Lee University men’s basketball team lead wire-to-wire in a 87-73 victory over Valdosta State University to open Gulf South Conference play on Saturday afternoon. With the win, the Flames moved to 3-0 overall and 1-0 in conference action. Hendricks had a career high 33 points and nine assists, while Vaughn added a career best 21 points in the win.
The Flames hit three, three-point shots in the first 100 seconds and kept the foot on the gas pedal in the first half.
By the time the first media timeout came in the contest, the Flames led 14-3. The Blazers had no answer for Lee’s offense in the first 12 minutes as they pushed the lead out to 33-11 at one point.
Lee made six three-point shots in the first half and went into the halftime break leading 42-28. Valdosta came out with more urgency in the second half and turned up the defensive pressure and slowly chipped away at the deficit.
VSU cut it down to 71-61 in the second period but that was a close as they got as two free throws from Hendricks and a three-point shot from Tariq Daughton kept the lead in double digits for the Flames and they held on for the 87-73 win.
Lee forced 17 turnovers from the Blazers while only committing 11. The Flames took advantage of the miscues as they scored 26 points off the VSU turnovers. Lee shot 44% from the field while the Blazers were at 41%.
Lee will continue the homestand as they will host the University of West Florida on Monday, November 27 at 7:30 PM at Walker Arena.
Coach Bubba Smith’s Thoughts:
“We’ve been talking about fast starts with the team. Our first group hasn’t been the fastest in getting games going. We addressed it in practice this week and have been working on it. We needed to deliver the first punch and we did that. It set the tone and gave us a good margin in the first half into the second half.”
“Our depth of the bench is going to be a strength of our team this year. But I felt tonight we had to ride our veteran players. Beyuan has a knack for big games and he delivered tonight. We will need the depth for a big second game of conference weekend coming up on Monday.”