CLEVELAND, Tenn. – The Lee University men's basketball used another strong second half to pull away from the University of West Georgia and earn their seventh win in a row 80-63 on Monday night. The Flames outscored the Wolves 47-30 in the second half to pull away and remain in a tie for first place in the Gulf South Conference. PJay Smith led the Flames with 20 points, six rebounds, and five assists on the way to the win.
Flames scored five quick points but then UWG stepped up their defense and rattled off a 9-0 run to take a 11-2. PJay Smith ended the cold streak on a baseline jumper. However, the Flames went on another scoring drought of two minutes before Tim Vaughn made a bucket. UWG pushed the lead to 19-9 with 12 minutes left in the first half.
Lee had three two minute scoring droughts in the first half as UWG pushed the lead out to as many as 11 points before Beyuan Hendricks hit a three to momentarily stop the bleeding. After a couple of more buckets from the Wolves, Smith led a Lee run by himself. He made back-to-back three points shots and then Makhi McGuire made a jumper to cut the deficit to 26-24 with 3:30 left in the half. Teams traded buckets for the last three minutes of the half. Jalen Page banked in a three point shot to help tie the game at 33-33 at the halftime break.
The second half started slowly as neither team scored for the first two minutes of the period. Then Jayce Willingham and McGuire each scored to give Lee a four point lead at 37-33. Both teams struggled shooting as both teams had a scoring drought of over two and half minutes. Michael McGuirk hit a three point shot and then Tim Vaughn had a massive dunk and was fouled to give Lee a 49-40 lead.
MuGuirk hit another three and Willingham made a couple of buckets to help give the Flames a 15-3 run and a 56-44 lead. Lee started to hit shots and started to pull away. They pushed the lead out to 62-48 before Smith took over for Lee. He had two assists and a jumper on three straight possessions to give Lee a 71-52 lead.
The Flames put the exclamation point on the strong second with back-to-back dunks from Noah Boler. Lee held UWG to just 2-for-12 from the three-point arc in the second half. The Flames shot 51.8% in the second half while UWG was 31.3%. Lee had three players score in double figures on the win.
Head Coach Bubba Smith was pleased with the second half performance. "We were on our heels in the first half. We let them get too deep in the paint in the first half. In the second half we did much better. We didn't allow them any second chance points in the second half. Even though we picked up early fouls I was ok with it because we were the more aggressive team. Once we attacked with pace, we were able to score. I challenged Jayce at halftime to step up and he did just that. We have to learn to make adjustments quicker in games and credit the guys for talking amongst themselves and trying to make the adjustments."
With the win the Flames improved to 9-2 overall and 8-2 in GSC play and remained tied for first place in the GSC.
Lee will hit the road for two games in West Tennessee. They will play in Memphis on Thursday, January 5 at 8 PM.
