That the Georgia State men’s basketball team is again in the pole position to make the NCAA tournament may be the result of planning, luck, or some nylon-and-hardwood mixture of both.
A team that projected to be an offensive juggernaut with R.J. Hunter, Ryan Harrow and the addition of Kevin Ware, instead morphed into a team that has used defense to repeat as the Sun Belt men’s basketball champ and earn the top seed in the conference tournament in New Orleans. Georgia State will open play at 2 p.m. Saturday against either Texas State or Louisiana-Lafayette.
“Sometimes a team takes on a personality whether you want it to or not, based upon what happens,” coach Ron Hunter said. “We are a much better defensive team than we were a year ago.”
This season’s team is better on defense for several reasons, some of which can be traced to last year’s loss to Louisiana-Lafayette in the finals of the Sun Belt tournament. The Panthers blew an 11-point lead in the final seven minutes, costing themselves the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
It’s something R.J. Hunter, recently named the Sun Belt men’s player of the year for the second consecutive year, said he thinks about every day.
“You have to fail to see when something’s not working,” he said. “Last year we were kind of punked in the championship game. We were outrebounded. They got whatever they wanted when they wanted. It’s a pride thing. Offense is going to be there. We put defense first. It’s a mindset you have to have.”
Still, few thought defense would be this team’s forte, despite losing starters Manny Atkins and Devonta White to graduation.
Freshman Jeff Thomas would step into the Atkins’ role as a starter and provide a third 3-point shooter. His jumper would offset his lack of experience in Ron Hunter’s various zone schemes on defense.
But the NCAA ruled that Thomas couldn’t play this season because of an issue with his academic transcript.
Markus Crider, a tough defensive player, was put into the starting lineup in place of Thomas. He and R.J. Hunter have done a much better job grabbing defensive rebounds. While Ware has struggled to find a role in the offense, his defense at the top of the free-throw lane and on the wings has proved invaluable.
Georgia State turned from a team that gave up 68.5 points per game, allowed opponents to shoot 42.1 percent and was outrebounded by almost five per game last season into one that is allowing 62.5 points per game, holding opponents to 38.2-percent shooting and has cut that rebounding margin gap to less than one per game.
Harrow said the loss to Louisiana-Lafayette sharpened the team’s focus on defense.
“It definitely changed our perspective on how we should approach things,” he said. “You are never guaranteed a win no matter how much time is left on the clock or by how much you are ahead. If you play good defense throughout the whole game we know we will be OK because we know we are going to score.”
Defense was supposed to be a focus last year, but Ron Hunter said the team evolved into one that could make 3-pointers, but had issues with stopping opponents from doing so.
With another year of experience in his system, and moving Crider and the addition of Ware, the defense naturally improved.
But it still took time.
Despite all the ingredients — the motivation of the loss to the Cajuns, the new faces, the hype of being a possible NCAA tournament team — R.J. Hunter said defense didn’t click for the players until the 72-48 win against Wisconsin-Green Bay. Georgia State held the Phoenix to 28.8 percent shooting. That foreshadowed a run made during conference play in which the Panthers held six consecutive opponents to less than 30-percent shooting, something no team has done since at least 1996-97.
It likely will take a similar performance for Georgia State to win the Sun Belt tournament and make it to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2001.
“From me to R.J. to Markus Crider to Ryann Green, we are taking (defense) more serious because we know we have a good chance to make it to the NCAA tournament and surprise some people,” Harrow said.
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