Men's Basketball | 4/26/2021 2:22:00 PM

Dixie State head men's basketball coach Jon Judkins announced on Monday that junior BYU transfer Kolby Lee has signed a scholarship offer to join the Trailblazer program for the upcoming 2021-22 season.

Lee, who signed at BYU as an ESPN four-star recruit out of Rocky Mountain (ID) High School, played three seasons with the Cougars from 2017-21. The 6-9 center started in 43 of 72 career games at BYU, including 28 of 30 games in 2019-20, when he averaged 7.0 points and 3.2 per game, highlighted by a career-high 21 points on 8-of-8 shooting in a home win over San Diego (1/16/20). Lee was also among the leaders in the West Coast Conference in field goal percentage at 62.5 percent.

This past season, Lee started in 15 of 25 games and averaged 3.7 points and 2.0 rebounds an outing to help lead the Cougars to an NCAA Tournament appearance.

Lee was the 2017 Idaho 5A and Gatorade Player of the Year at RMHS, where he helped guide the Grizzlies to a 26-1 overall record and to the school's first-ever state championship. He was also the 23^rd-ranked center in the country during his senior campaign.

"Kolby is an experienced, skilled, tough and talented big man," Coach Judkins said. "His feel for the game, ability to score inside and outside and rebound at a high level will be a welcomed addition to our program. His work ethic, leadership and chip on his shoulder will fit perfectly with our culture and we expect great things from Kolby as he does of himself.

"Trailblazer nation is going to love seeing this talented big man do work in the paint and on the perimeter," Judkins added. "We are so excited to have Kolby in our program."

Lee joins Dixie HS standout Isaac Finlinson, Lehi (UT) HS product Noa Gonsalves and Odessa College transfer Dancell Leter as members of the Trailblazers' 2020-21 signing class.

Why Kolby Lee (TWITTER - @Krlee32 / IG - @Kolbylee40) chose Dixie State - "I chose Dixie State because from the moment they started recruiting me it felt really genuine and I could feel the love. My wife and I both had a great feeling about it from all the coaches. A lot of schools that were recruiting me, the head coaches weren't involved, but it was mostly the assistant coaches. In this process with Dixie State, Coach Judkins was really involved in calling and always checking in on me, it felt really genuine and not forced or trying to just be a salesman, it was more wanting to be a friend. We really liked that about Dixie State. Jon [Judkins] is the brother of [BYU women's basketball head coach] Jeff Judkins, who my wife plays for, and there's just a lot of things that kind of worked out for us in our situation. How [St. George to Provo] is not too far and [the coaches] are willing to work with us. The coaches were really genuine, real guys, who weren't feeding me information that I wanted to hear, it was information that I needed to hear and what was actually going to happen."