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Déja Lee, UC Irvine women beat UCSB in regular-season finale

March 9, 2025

IRVINE — A second straight Big West Conference Player of the Year Award likely won’t happen for UC Irvine point guard Déja Lee, but she would trade that prize for another trip to the NCAA Tournament anyway.

Lee played her final regular-season game for the Anteaters on Saturday afternoon and contributed a little bit of everything in the 62-49 victory over UC Santa Barbara at the Bren Events Center.

Lee finished with a team-high 13 points, seven rebounds and five assists while committing just one turnover.

“Five assists and one turnover. I’ll take it all day long,” UCI coach Tamara Inoue said.

UCI (21-9 overall, 15-5 Big West) now heads to Henderson, Nevada, for the eight-team Big West Tournament, which begins on Wednesday.

The Anteaters had already locked up a double-bye into Friday’s semifinals with a last-second 55-53 victory over visiting UC Davis on Thursday night and will be seeded No. 2 behind Hawaii.

UCI won the conference tournament for the first time since 1995 last season, beating UC Davis behind 21 points from Lee, who was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.

After the Anteaters fell to fourth-seeded Gonzaga in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and Lee became the first UCI women’s player in program history to win Big West Player of the Year, the Surrey, British Columbia native was asked to move from shooting guard to point guard this season following the graduation of Diaba Konate.

It was a new role on the team for Lee, but not an unfamiliar one.

“I’ve always been a distributing point guard and I played point guard my entire life,” Lee said. “My first look is to set my teammates up. … As long as I make a good decision and it leads to a score, that’s all that matters to me.”

The change in position has impacted Lee’s numbers, however.

Her scoring, shooting percentages and even steals have declined this season, but her assist average climbed from 1.9 to 3.0 per game entering Saturday’s game, which was tied for third in the conference.

“My decision-making, that was a bit of an adjustment at first, because I was used to building off of someone else’s decisions,” Lee said.

The move to point guard and the addition of several offensively skilled players created less of a need for Lee to score.

Hunter Hernandez and Olivia Williams returned after both missed last season with knee injuries sustained during the 2022-23 season, and UCI also added 6-foot-3 freshman forward Summah Hanson from Australia, who has emerged as the team’s third-leading scorer.

With the new options on the offensive end, Lee’s scoring average dropped from a team-high 13.9 ppg last season to 10.4 heading into Saturday’s regular-season finale, which was still second on the team behind Hernandez (13.3).

Lee produced seven 20-point games last season, but has just one this season and that came on Nov. 27. She hasn’t scored more than 16 points in any conference games.

“She had to take the point guard position with Diaba being gone, so it limits her (scoring) a little bit more,” Inoue said. “But, I think with Hunter coming in and all our transfers, it’s been really helpful for her and she just wants to win, so she’ll do whatever it takes.”

Although the Anteaters had second place and the double-bye locked up entering Saturday’s game, UCSB had plenty of motivation to win.

If the Gauchos could beat UCI a second time this season, they would have locked up fourth place in the conference and earned a bye into Thursday’s quarterfinals.

UCSB (18-12, 12-8) hung around until giving up the final seven points of the first half to fall behind 24-17. The Anteaters then shot 7 for 9 from 3-point range in the third quarter to extend the lead to 51-37 and they never looked back.

Ten Anteaters scored and six of them made at least one 3-pointer.

“We lost to them last time we played them and that was our first loss to Santa Barbara in the four years I’ve been here,” Lee said. “And so that kind of lit a fire under our butts. Getting the opportunity to play them, not only in our last game, but my senior night, we were not going out on a loss.”

Orange County Register

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Déja Lee, UC Irvine women beat UCSB in regular-season finale

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