HOMEWOOD, Ala. | The University of Alabama in Huntsville men's basketball team is headed to the conference tournament championship game for the fifth time in the past six seasons after the third-seeded Chargers defeated No. 2 seed Lee by a 72-63 score at the Pete Hanna Center in the semifinals of the 2020 Gulf South Conference Men's Basketball Championships.
 
Now 8-3 all-time in semifinal games, the Chargers will now take on top-seeded Valdosta State at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday in the championship game.
 
JJ Kaplan led a quartet of Chargers who scored in double figures on the night as he was 6-for-10 from the floor and 9-of-10 at the charity stripe on his way to scoring a team-high 23 points while also grabbing a UAH-best eight rebounds.
 
With four 3-pointers and a 7-for-12 overall night from the field, Sam Orf tallied 18 and matched Kaplan with eight boards. Seth Swalve scored 16, and Malik Cook-Stroupe rounded out UAH's double-figure scorers with 11.
 
The first half was a back-and-forth affair with nine lead changes, and neither team was able to push the lead out larger than five until the 6:11 mark when the Flames went up by six at 27-21. Then with the game even at 29-29 with 3:22 left until the halftime break, the Flames would rip off a 12-2 run over the final minutes to take a 41-31 lead at the break.
 
UAH cut it to five right out of the locker room, but six straight points for Lee pushed the Flames ahead 47-36 with 16:30 left in the game.
 
Not deterred, a Cook-Stroupe triple would start a 10-0 run for the Chargers to pull the team within one just over two minutes later, and though UAH would trail by just the singe point on another pair of occasions, it was not until two shots from the charity stripe for Kaplan with 10:38 remaining did the Chargers take the lead at 54-53. 
 
The Flames would slide back in front temporarily, but another successful trip to the line for Kaplan put UAH ahead just past the midway point of the half, and the Chargers would not look back.
 
The lead would grow to 64-59 with 4:39 remaining after a Cook-Stroupe bucket, and it was five again at 66-61 at the 2:13 mark after a Swalve bucket, allowing UAH to just need free throws and stops down the stretch to seal the game.
 
The Flames would be held to just two made free throws and no field goals in the final two minutes, and Swalve went 4-for-4 from the line before Kaplan produced the 72-63 final with his final two foul shots of the night.
 
In the impressive second half, the Chargers shot 60.0 percent which gave them a 52.1 percent mark for the night, and UAH's defensive effort in the final 20 minutes held Lee – who had connected on 65.4 percent of its tries in the first half – to just a 30.4 shooting percentage to give the Flames a 49.0 percent showing for the night.
 
That tough defense forced Lee to commit 18 turnovers in the game, and the Chargers parlayed that into a key 24-10 difference in points off giveaways.
 
Behind the performances of Kaplan and Orf, the Chargers outrebounded the Flames by a 29-24 advantage. 
 
Prior to the contest, UAH's Henley Edge was honored as the GSC Men's Basketball Championships Champion Scholar-Athlete. This is the first year that the league office has given out the Champion Scholar-Athlete Award, and the award is handed out at the final site of each GSC Championship, where the student-athlete with the highest cumulative GPA among teams participating is recognized.