Georgia State started its five-game homestand with a 72-68 win over Troy on Thursday night at the GSU Sports Arena.
Jeremy Hollowell led the Panthers (9-3, 2-1 Sun Belt) with 22 points, while Kevin Ware added 17.
Making 3-pointers and free throws, Troy cut Georgia State’s 26-point lead, built with 3:05 left in the first half, to five with 1:04 remaining when Ware fouled Jeremy Hollimon while shooting a 3-pointer. Ware got the ball, but bumped Hollimon’s body as he flew past. Hollimon made two of the three free throws.
T.J. Shipes, a 47.1-percent free-throw shooter, made two free throws to increase Georgia State’s lead to 64-57 with 1:04 left. Isaiah Williams added two more free throws before Wesley Person made a 3-pointer to cut the Panthers’ lead to 66-60 with 52.8 seconds left.
Georgia State made free throws to increase its lead to seven before John Walton III banked in a 3-pointer to make the score 70-66 with 9.2 seconds left. Williams made two free throws to seal the win. He finished with 16 points.
“I thought we did some good things (in the first half) and some real terrible things in the second half,” coach Ron Hunter said, later adding, “I’d rather learn from a win than a loss.”
Hunter said he spoke to the team’s seniors about the need to maintain intensity for 40 minutes. Troy scored 19 points in the first half and 49 in the second half.
With the win, the Panthers improved to 31-1 in its past 32 at home, including 13 consecutive wins. Georgia State will host South Alabama on Saturday.
Here are four observations about Thursday’s game:
Finding offense. Georgia State ranked last in the Sun Belt in scoring (66.3 points per game) before Thursday's game, but made up for it with one of the conference's better defenses (60.5 points).
The Panthers started Thursday’s game as if they were a different team, at least on offense.
Hollowell and Ware combined to score Georgia State’s first 17 points, 15 on 3-pointers, in the game’s first eight minutes. The duo, who were combining to average more than 27 points, had 22 before the game was 12 minutes old.
Ware made his third 3-pointer (he had hit two all season) to give Georgia State a 34-9 lead.
Perhaps over confident after making 8-of-14 3-pointers in the first half, Georgia State kept shooting them in the second half but only made 1-of-8.
“That’s not who we are,” Hunter said. “We’re not a 3-point shooting team like that.”
Containing Troy's duo. While Georgia State's two leading scorers were having a shoot-around early, Troy's could do next to nothing.
Jordon Varnado and Person had averaged 34.7 points combined. Varnado had the duo’s only basket through the first 12 minutes before Person made a 3-pointer with 7:49 remaining. They finished with eight points in the first half.
Person finished the game with 21 points and Varnado 4.
Hunter said he knew that Person could miss 10 consecutive shots and then make 10, so they focused on trying to reduce Varnado’s role by mixing defenses inside so that he couldn’t get comfortable. Varnado went 1-of-8 from the floor while Person went 8-of-11, including 5-of-8 on 3-pointers.
“We couldn’t let both of those guys get going,” Hunter said.
Maintaining a pace. Hunter said that the Panthers needed to maintain a deliberate pace against Troy, which likes to run, to improve his team's chances at winning.
In each of the team’s three losses, Hunter said the Panthers played at the other team’s pace.
It wasn’t hard to keep it slow Thursday because Georgia State rarely missed in the first half (48.4 percent shooting), limiting Troy’s opportunities for fast breaks.
The Trojans couldn’t function well in a slower half-court game against the Panthers’ zone defenses. They shot only 25 percent in the first half, with five fast-break points.
“Our defense was unbelievable; they couldn’t get a shot off,” Hunter said.
But things began to change late in the first half. After holding Troy to nine points with 5:19 left in the first half, the Trojans scored 10 points in the period’s final minutes.
“That’s when it started to slip,” Hunter said. “We never got back the same intensity. Senior leadership doesn’t allow that to happen. It’s part of the growth process.”
Solid 3-point defense. Georgia State was tough early, as it has been most of the season in allowing opponents to make a Sun Belt-worst 29.8 percent of their 3-pointers.
Troy, one of the Sun Belt’s better 3-point shooting teams (32.9 percent), missed its first six and made 2 of 10 in the first half.
With the pace slowed and the 3-pointers not falling, Troy began attacking the basket more in the second half than in the first and had success drawing fouls. The Panthers were whistled for seven fouls in the first four minutes and scored six points off free throws to cut Georgia State’s lead to 44-27.
They then moved back outside and started making enough 3-pointers to cut Georgia State’s lead to 12, 51-39, with 10 minutes left.
Troy made 8 of 23 3-pointers, including 6 of 13 in the second half.
