WATCH: Hyunjung Lee scores career high 32 points and is doing something at Davidson Steph Curry couldn’t. The NBA could be next

Davidson’s Hyunjung Lee turned the annual game against the Charlotte 49ers into a personal H-O-R-S-E competition Tuesday night, powering his team to a 75-58 victory. He had a shooting performance that was — dare we say it? — Curry-esque. A junior wing from South Korea, Lee had a career-high 32 points. “I didn’t know I had scored that much,” Lee said afterward. “My teammates just kept finding me open.” A legitimate NBA prospect, Lee scored mostly on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers, which are his specialty. But he also had a variety of slicing layups. And he went 8-for-8 from the free-throw line.

 

“Sensational,” Davidson coach Bob McKillop termed it. Lee, who’s 6-foot-7, has been a good shooter for Davidson for quite a while. You may not have noticed, but he had an extremely rare 50-40-90 collegiate season in 2020-21, shooting at least 50% from the field, 40% from three-point range and 90% from the free-throw line.

Not only was Lee the only Davidson Wildcat to ever do that, but he was just the 11th Division I college basketball player to accomplish that shooting feat in the past 19 years. I asked McKillop to compare Lee’s shooting to Davidson legend Steph Curry, given that Curry never went 50-40-90 in college.

“Yeah, Steph waited until the NBA to do that,” McKillop cracked, which is true.

Lee is no Curry, of course. No one is. But for this Davidson team, Lee is a star in the making. He just might lead the Wildcats back into March Madness for the first time since 2018 if he plays like he did Tuesday night, when Davidson won the annual Battle for the Hornets’ Nest Trophy before a crowd of 4,258 at Charlotte’s Halton Arena.

 

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