Not only did Georgia Southern miss making the NCAA tournament because of a two-point loss to Georgia State in the finals of the Sun Belt tournament, the Eagles suffered yet another indignity on Sunday when they were snubbed by the NIT.
Instead of taking Georgia Southern, which went 22-9, the NIT went with some of the usual power-conference suspects like Illinois, Miami and Texas A&M, none of which won as many games.
But the Eagles may have only themselves to blame with a schedule that included three wins against non-Division I squads, as well as two losses in three of their final regular-season games. Of course, those losses came to two of the four best teams in the Sun Belt in Louisiana-Lafayette and Georgia State in the finale that cost the Eagles the regular-season title.
Georgia Southern still clinched the Sun Belt’s second seed, knocking off Louisiana-Monroe 44-43 in Saturday’s semifinal before falling to the Panthers 38-36 on Sunday.
“You put in months and months and years for these guys to try to have a moment like that,” Eagles coach Mark Byington said. “We were close. We were about as close as you could get. About an inch here or there and we win the game. I feel bad for the guys because they’ve given me every single thing they have this year.”
The Eagles were still waiting to hear from the other postseason tournaments Sunday night.
It would a fitting reward for a team loaded with seniors, including Jelani Hewitt, the Sun Belt’s defensive player of the year, Trent Wiedeman, a third-team all-conference selection, sharpshooter Curtis Diamond, who hit a key 3-pointer in the Sun Belt’s semifinals, Eric Ferguson, who missed the final shot on Sunday, Angel Matias, who suffered a foot injury on Feb. 28 that coincided with losing two of the three games, and two more seniors.
“Our team has a great group returning [next season] and they definitely have a chance to win,” Wiedeman said. “ They just got to do everything Coach B tells them to do, just listen to whatever he says.”
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