CLEVELAND, Tenn. - The UWG men's basketball team secured their eighth win in their last nine after a 71-66 win over the Lee Flames on Wednesday night.
The Wolves had their best defensive night of the season, holding the Flames to 41.2% from the field and 30.4% from three in route to their 12
th win of the season. The Flames came into the game averaging 75 points per game on the season.
J.J. Barnes got it started for the Wolves as the junior scored four of the first eight points for West Georgia as the Wolves took an 8-7 lead into the first media timeout. Out of the timeout, Lee scored back-to-back buckets to take their first and only lead of the game. Midway through the half, UWG's defense started to take over as the Wolves held the Flames scoreless for four minutes during a 10-0 West Georgia run. Lee started to find their rhythm late in the half and used an 8-3 run to cut the UWG lead to three as the teams went into the halftime break.
In the first half, West Georgia held Lee to 40% shooting and forced nine turnovers to take a 32-29 lead into the locker rooms at the half.
The Wolves opened the second half with a 9-2 run that was capped off by a heavily contested
J.J. Barnes three that gave UWG a 10-point lead heading into the first media timeout. West Georgia maintained control for majority of the half and took their largest lead of the night at 12 after a
Jalen Sasser layup with 9:19 left in the game. Lee responded with an 8-0 run to cut the Wolves' lead to four, but back-to-back buckets from
Kadeim Jones and
Deng Nhial extended the lead back to nine with 5:43 left.
The Flames fired right back with another 8-0 run to cut the lead to one with 3:43 left before
Michael Zabetakis completely took over the game. Zabetakis went on a personal 6-0 run to extend the lead to seven and finished things off with a massive three-point play with 15 seconds left to put the game out of reach.
Kadeim Jones finished with a team-high 18 points while
Michael Zabetakis finished with 16 points, seven rebounds, and a team-high three steals. West Georgia will be back in action on Saturday with a date in Livingston, Alabama for a 5:00 p.m. conference matchup against West Alabama.
