A horrific 3-point shooting night by Georgia State and timely shooting by Texas State saw the Panthers fall 77-74 in two overtimes on Monday at the GSU Sports Arena. The loss snapped Georgia State’s 18-game home winning streak.
Exemplified by R.J. Hunter missing all 10 of his 3-pointers, the Panthers missed 14 of 16 to drop their first Sun Belt Conference game this season. Hunter, the team’s leading scorer and a possible NBA draft pick, finished with 10 points, his second consecutive sub-par scoring performance after going for 14 in Saturday’s victory against Arkansas-Little Rock. Ryan Harrow led the Panthers on Monday with 29 points. Kevin Ware added 14.
“We’ve won so many games here you think you can just show up and win,” coach Ron Hunter said. “In conference play, every game is a big game. It’s something we have to make sure we understand. It’s a major-league wake-up call.”
Georgia State (9-5, 2-1) thought it had the game won in regulation with a four-point lead and 1:17 left. But Texas State (8-4, 2-1) hit two 3-pointers – one by Ethan Montalvo and one by D.J. Brown — around a Georgia State turnover to take a 57-55 lead with 16.2 seconds left. The Panthers tied it on a layup by Harrow with six seconds left to force the first overtime.
Georgia State thought it again had the game won in overtime after Harrow completed a three-point play with 47.3 seconds and Ryann Green hit two free throws for a 69-66 lead with 10 seconds left. But Emani Gant banked in a 3-pointer – the first he has attempted in his two years at Texas State — at the buzzer to force a second overtime.
Texas State pulled away in the final period as the Panthers had no answer to stopping Gant, who finished with 17 points.
The game figured to be a tug-of-war between Texas State’s grind-it-out style, evidenced by its 40-36 loss at Georgia Southern on Saturday, and Georgia State’s faster pace, evidenced by its 82-69 decision against Arkansas-Little Rock on Saturday.
The Bobcats, using a disciplined man-to-man defense, made every shot difficult for the Panthers. Still, Georgia State had lots of easy looks inside, but few of them would fall.
The aggression also contributed to Georgia State committing a season-high 18 turnovers. The team’s season average was 10.5.
Hunter had an inkling this performance was coming. He said he didn’t like Sunday’s practice and didn’t like Monday’s pre-game shoot around.
“Sometimes you have to be smacked in the head to wake you up a little bit,” Ron Hunter said.
Hunter now has two problems to solve before Thursday’s game against Louisiana-Lafayette, which beat the Panthers in the finals of the Sun Belt tournament last year.
The Panthers had a sizable lead in the final minutes of that game, only to see the Cajuns force overtime.
The first problem is finishing games, which goes back to the Sun Belt tournament. Hunter said he doesn’t think the team has trouble doing so – pointing to the close wins at Oakland and at IUPUI earlier this year as evidence, but acknowledged they didn’t do a lot of things right in Monday’s loss.
The second problem is how to get R.J. Hunter going on offense. Hunter missed 13 of his 16 shots on Monday after missing six of eight last week. Ron Hunter said it will come down to patience.
“He has to see the ball going in. He’s mentally frustrated,” Ron Hunter said. “This is a learning experience for him. He needs to learn and grow from this.”
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