The Georgia State men’s basketball team will begin an important five-game homestand on Thursday by hosting Troy.
The Panthers (8-3) are 1-1 in the Sun Belt following a loss at Texas-Arlington and win over Texas State last week. To maintain the formula that has served coach Ron Hunter’s team well in winning back-to-back Sun Belt regular season titles, the Panthers need to try to sweep the quintet of games at the GSU Sports Arena, which includes South Alabama on Saturday, Louisiana-Monroe and Louisiana-Lafayette next week, and ends with Georgia Southern on Jan. 19.
“Recipe doesn’t change,” Hunter said. “Win home games, split road games and you have a chance to win a championship. It’s what we did last year.”
Within that formula are a few things that Georgia State must maintain: defense, tempo, taking care of the ball and making free throws.
“That’s Georgia State basketball,” Hunter said. “We have won championships that way.”
Hunter said in each of the three losses his team has played at the other team’s tempo. That was especially true in last week’s 85-70 defeat at Texas-Arlington. The Mavericks scored more points and hit more 3-pointers (11) against the Panthers than any other team this season. Hunter said Texas-Arlington killed his team in transition with 3-pointers and easy baskets off Georgia State turnovers.
The key to controlling tempo is to run the offense. Just because a player is open and has the ball doesn’t mean he has to shoot.
“I tell them there’s probably a reason they were open,” Hunter said.
The Panthers were able to slow things down and run the offense two days later in a 58-46 win over Texas State. The Bobcats missed 17 of their 20 3-pointers and weren’t able to do much with Georgia State’s 11 turnovers. The Panthers hit 6 of 9 free throws.
Georgia State will need to play more like it did against Texas State than Texas-Arlington on Thursday because Troy (5-8, 0-2 Sun Belt) also likes to push the pace. The Trojans are fifth in the conference in scoring (75.8 points per game), fourth in 3-point shooting (32.9) and third in steals (8.2). Georgia State is last in the conference in scoring (66.3) but third in scoring defense (60.5), first in 3-point defense (29.4) and fourth in turnover margin (plus-3.18).
A good thing for Georgia State is that guard Kevin Ware and forward Markus Crider, who handle the ball a lot within the offense, are playing the best basketball of their careers, according to Hunter.
Ware is averaging 12.7 points per game, but has a 1:1 assist-to-turnover ratio. He is second in team with 16 steals. Crider is averaging 9.5 points per game and a team-leading 4.7 rebounds per game. He is third on the team with 12 steals.
Hunter said he isn’t sure if Crider will move back into the starting lineup. After coming off the bench as a sixth man for a few games, he moved back into the starting lineup for his defense against Texas-Arlington, before moving back to the bench so that freshman Jeff Thomas could start against Texas State.
Hunter said Ware and Crider are the reason that Georgia State is 8-3 with a chance to move to 13-3 if it can sweep the homestand.
“If we can come out unscathed it sets us up nicely,” Hunter said.
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