When the Lee men's basketball team looks back at its 2015-16 season, losses to Christian Brothers and Saturday's heartbreaker to West Georgia will always haunt a group of battling athletes.

On January 23, Christian Brothers canned a 3-point shot right before the final buzzer sounded to hand the Flames a crushing defeat. On Saturday afternoon West Georgia's Willie Evans drilled a fade-away trey with the final seconds ticking away to give the Wolves a gut-wrenching 71-68 win over Lee.

"I've never seen a team fight so hard and have this many disappointing losses," said coach Tommy Brown as he struggled to hold back his pain. "West Georgia is a tremendously talented team and with plenty of depth but I'm really proud of our guys. They hung in there and had a chance to win until that 3-point shot. It was even tougher than the shot Christian Brothers made to beat us."

The Wolves led 35-33 at halftime and increased the margin to nine points midway of the second half. The Flames continued to battle back and owned a one-point lead before Zach Tauilien knocked down a triple to put the Wolves back on top with just over 1:30 remaining. Shannon Fowler converted two free-throws in four attempts to push the margin back to two points.

Chase Cullen went to the line and tied the thriller with some 23 seconds remaining. The Wolves called a timeout and went to work against Lee's defense. Finally, the ball went to Evans who drilled the dagger.

Keevin Tyus made tough shot after tough shot against a sagging West Georgia defense and finished with a game-high 21 points and eight rebounds. Cullen followed with 15 points and Levi Woods finished with nine. Rantavious Gilbert brought the Lee fans to their feet several times in the closing minutes and finished with five blocks, giving him a nation-leading 83 blocks for the year.

West Georgia constantly went inside to Fowler, who had a double-double, 18 points and 10 rebounds. Tauilien made four 3-pointers and racked up 14 points, while Steph Branch came away with 12 points and Marcus Dortch contributed 10 markers. Evans, who hit the game-winner, tallied seven points.

Again the Flames shot well from the field, making 48 percent of their attempts. However, they struggled from 3-point range, making just 3-of-13. They were awarded only 11 free throws in the rugged contest and made nine. On the other hand, the Wolves shot better from 3-point range than they did from the field, making 6-of-14 treys and shooting 42 percent from the floor. Lee had 14 turnovers compared to 10 for the winners. The Flames out-rebounded the taller Wolves 36-35.

The Flames completed their GSC games in Walker Arena. They will close out the GSC schedule with road games at Mississippi College, Delta State and Shorter before returning home to host Hiwassee College on February 23.