With shots tough to come by most of the evening the Lee men's basketball team suffered its second straight defeat after rattling off an eight-game winning streak as it dropped a Gulf South Conference contest to Alabama Huntsville, 75-58 on Saturday afternoon inside Walker Arena.
The Chargers pulled away in the second half with hot shooting from beyond the arc while limiting the Flames to just 28 second half points.
Lee was led by junior big man Colton Blevins who tallied 22 points. Junior Ryan Montgomery added 13 and Parker Suedekum finished with nine.
"I thought today we did a lot of standing around and watching too often offensively," said Lee head coach Bubba Smith. "Colton did a nice job in the post but we struggled shooting the ball and didn't crash the boards like we need to get second chance opportunities. Credit Huntsville they had a game plan, executed well and were not giving us many open looks."
The Flames went 0-6 from the 3-point line in the first half but got a lift with 13 points from Blevins and a racing layup at the horn by Suedekum to stay within striking range, trailing 35-30.
The Lee defense buckled down in the early portion of the second half and held the Chargers scoreless for over three and half minutes out of the locker room but from there it was all UAH as they canned six 3-pointers to pull away from the Flames.
For the game the Chargers converted 22 of 46 (47.8 percent) from the field and hit 10 of 24 (41.7 percent) from deep while Lee struggled from the field connecting on just 19 of 48 (39.6 percent) from the field and only 2 of 12 from beyond the arc.
UAH was paced by 25 points and 10 rebounds from Sam Orf. Malik Cook-Stroupe went a perfect 4 of 4 from 3-point land to account for his 12 points while Max Shulman followed suite in nailing all four of his attempts from the 3-point line as well.
The Chargers held a 33-24 advantage on the glass in the contest and surrendered just one offensive rebound to the Flames.
After eight straight wins and six straight in the GSC Lee has dropped back to back games to fall to 9-7 overall and 6-2 in league play. The Flames are currently in third place in the conference standings. The win propels the Chargers to 12-4 on the year and 5-3 in the GSC. Â
"I told our team the good thing is we have been here before," added Smith. "We got off to a slow start this year and turned it around and started playing really good basketball for several weeks and I'm confident we will get back on track next week."
The Flames will look to get back in the win column as they continue a four-game home stand on Thursday against the University of Montevallo. Opening tip is scheduled for 8 p.m.
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