North Alabama players walking out of Sunday’s postgame news conference were met emotionally with their head coach greeting them at the door.

“Great job,” Tony Pujol seemed to say to his players as they shared an embrace.

The moments following Sunday’s conference championship loss stung for everyone in Pujol’s corner, but was that much more emotional for the veteran coach.

“Only thing I can tell you is I’m hurting for my players,” he said. “I’m here to serve them. They’re the ones out there competing, man. To me, I’m here to serve them, and they did all the work. So, that’s who I hurt for right now. Am I feeling a certain way? Yeah, but a lot of that is because of them.”

Regardless, the team left its state and community a season that’ll be etched in history.

North Alabama fell one game short of the program’s first NCAA Tournament berth with a 76-65 loss to top-seeded Lipscomb in the ASUN Conference tournament championship game in Nashville.

The Lions’ moved to 24-10 on the year, sharing the regular-season championship with Lipscomb.

“Right now, it hurts a lot,” senior Will Soucie said. “We’ve got a lot of seniors, it’s their last game representing the Lions. That hurts a lot, but it won’t take away from the history we made this year. Regular-season champions, 20-plus wins; it was a special year, it just wasn’t our day. They made plays at the end, and we didn’t.

“It hurts right now, but this is something this year is going to be, a year that none of us are going to forget. This is probably one of the best years of my life, and I appreciate every teammate, every coach and every member of the community that supported us this year.”

Jacari Lane led the Lions with 18 points on offense, logging 6 rebounds and an assist in the loss. Corneilous Williams added 15 points and 7 boards for UNA and Soucie also scored in double figures with 10 points and 6 rebounds.

Senior Taye Fields, who transferred to UNA this offseason, finished with 12 rebounds to lead the Lions; he said being able to reunite with former Lee-Huntsville teammate Jacari Lane made his 2024-25 season in Florence that much more special.

“It’s truly a blessing being able to play with your high school teammate,” said Fields, an Opelika native. “Not many people get a chance to do that, especially at the Division I level. Honestly, it’s just a blessing. I thank coach Pujol and the rest of the staff for giving me the opportunity to come here and believe in me. I’m just thankful.”

Lane praised UNA’s seniors for the historic year it had, noting how much they helped the team jell throughout the year.

“They put in so much work,” he said of the group’s veterans. “They just educate the younger guys like myself, they just give us so much knowledge, not just on the court. I’m very emotional for the seniors, but this is by far the most connected team that I’ve been on, the most fun group. I’m proud that I got to do it with these guys.”

After falling in a 21-10 hole early, UNA rallied to make it as close as a 2-point game in the first half after a pair of free throws from Fields with 3:51 left before halftime.

The second half featured 10 lead changes before Lipscomb closed out on an 11-3 run over the last 2:22 of the matchup.

“I’m very proud of my guys and the way that they competed,” Pujol said. “We got in a hole early, and they fought their way back. I heard one of these guys say that we had to always come back, but I thought we had taken the lead, and I think there’s where you’ve got to give credit to Lipscomb for coming back as well. I thought it was a heavyweight fight. Both teams played their tails off, and I think Lipscomb just made a few more plays down the stretch than we did, so a lot of credit goes to them.”

Lipscomb coach Lennie Acuff, a Huntsville native who spent 22 years as the head coach at UAH before arriving in Nashville, made it clear Pujol’s group deserves a postseason bid.

Lipscomb was led by 23 points from Joe Anderson and 17 from Will Pruitt, with the duo two of four players to score in double figures for the Bisons.

“That is an NIT team: they are,” Acuff said of UNA. “Their numbers aren’t much behind us. The first time the season we won at Duquesne and they won at Air Force, and I saw where this was headed. They popped us down there, and I thought we got the best of them here, but yeah, we’re going to enjoy this, I tell you that. A ton of respect for North Alabama, and good for their town, their city, to show up like that. What a statement about their pride. That’s a prideful community.

“They have a lot of pride for a lot of reasons, and it’s good for them that they showed up. I tell you what, the Lipscomb people showed up tonight. Lipscomb one tonight; Lipscomb University.”

While the NIT and CBI could call UNA to extend a historic year, Soucie showed plenty of gratitude for everyone involved in his long career with the Lions; he played in his 150th game for UNA on Sunday.

“This place is my home, it’s my family,” he said. “I came here from New Jersey, far from my family, and this place accepted me with open arms. It’s been a battle every single year; with my freshman year making it here, and then sophomore year having our worst year in program history, and now being able to get back up with the same coaching staff and a lot of guys, it’s been a journey that I’ll never forget.

“We have great young talent that took a back seat this year and knew their role,” Fields said. “They put their pride to the side to help us get better. Every single day, they pushed us at practice, and I think Coach Pujol is a great coach. He’ll make something out of nothing, so I give credit to him and that coaching staff. I really think from here on out, UNA is going to be a team that you need to look out for.”