The Georgia State Panthers have become several stories — they have the injured coach and the most famous injured player in NCAA Tournament history, not to mention the star who’s the injured coach’s son — but they have a chance to be something more than an intriguing little team. They can be the intriguing little team that sticks around.
“This is great for Georgia State,” coach Ron Hunter said here Wednesday. “When I took over this program a few years ago, most people on campus didn’t even know we had a basketball team. For people to know what we’re doing now is something special. But we’re not coming here because we’re just happy to be the (team with) the coach who tore his Achilles and won on a last-second (miss). We really believe we can win this game.”
Four days ago, R.J. Hunter, the coach’s son, made two winning free throws, and the Panthers induced two Georgia Southern misses in the final seconds. Having come within two seconds of the 2014 NCAA Tournament, the Panthers were finally Sun Belt champs and Big Dance invitees. Ron Hunter tore his Achilles in the celebration and rolled into Wednesday’s practice on a scooter. But you knew all that already.
What you mightn’t have grasped is that the Panthers enter the Big Dance playing with house money. They’ve achieved what every mid-major dreams of doing: They’re in the same tournament as Kentucky and Duke and Kansas. The pressure on them not to blow the Sun Belt championship a second time was immense, but the weight now falls on Baylor, the Panthers’ Thursday opponent and the West Regional’s No. 3 seed.
“It’s the NCAA Tournament,” said Kevin Ware, the transfer whose broken leg during Louisville’s run to the 2013 title was the lasting memory of that tournament. “A lot of people make their names here, and it’s just honestly fun. At Louisville we were projected to win, but we’re here just the underdog.”
The Panthers didn’t just win the Sun Belt tournament; they won with the memory of not winning the Sun Belt gnawing their innards. They were 17-1 in conference play in 2013-14, but were upset by Louisiana-Lafayette in the tournament final and relegated to the NIT.
Said R.J. Hunter: “The whole time during the offseason, every time we were in a workout, we kind of thought about that moment. I got over it, though, because I was losing too much sleep over it, and I was being mad.”
Said Ryan Harrow, Hunter’s backcourt mate the past two seasons: “Ever since we lost that game last year when we were so close, all we could think about was making it to the tournament. We didn’t care about anything else. That’s all R.J. and I could talk about, and we knew we had another year to come back.”
Then this: “We achieved it and we’re here now, and we didn’t just come here to play. We wanted to come here and win some games and make people believers even though they might think Georgia State is a little school. We feel like we can play with anybody.”
For all the discussion of Ron Hunter’s Achilles and Ware’s broken leg, the key injury for Georgia State is Harrow’s. He tweaked his hamstring in the regular-season finale, also against Georgia Southern, and played only six minutes in two Sun Belt tournament games. R.J. Hunter is the Panthers’ biggest talent, but Harrow — who averages 18.7 points and 3.7 assists — is the engine.
Harrow will try to play against Baylor, but his demeanor during Georgia State’s open practice at Veterans Memorial Coliseum wasn’t that of a man brimming with confidence. He walked around the edge of the court while his teammates ran and jumped and shot.
“I’m trying to get myself ready,” Harrow said. “It’s going to be a game-time decision. I’m just working as hard as I can to be out there on the floor to help my team in any way. Obviously I won’t be 100 percent, but as long as I can do my rehab and try to get out there on the floor, I will.”
Said Ron Hunter: “The problem is the explosion. He’s so quick and when he pushes off, he needs that. I don’t know if we’ll start him to see how he’ll go. I’ll look at him in warm-ups, which is what we did (against Georgia Southern on Sunday). He thought he could go, but I didn’t think he was ready, and I don’t want a 60 or 70 percent Ryan Harrow because it’ll affect our team.”
Georgia State is 9-0 in games Harrow missed, but none of those games was against an opponent of Baylor’s caliber. The coaches have an idea what the other will do, Ron Hunter having worked against Scott Drew when the two were based at IUPUI and Valparaiso. Both will deploy a zone defense, and if R.J. Hunter can hit over Baylor’s, the Panthers will have a shot. If not, probably not.
Still, this is March, the month when almost anything can happen. Eighteen No. 3 seeds have been unhorsed by a No. 14, so it’s not as if hasn’t happened. The burden of proof is on Baylor. Georgia State is where it wanted to be. Everything from here on is gravy.
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