Opponents take a lot of 3-pointers against the Georgia State men’s basketball team because that’s what Ron Hunter’s defense is designed to get them to do.
The more they take, the happier he is because Hunter said when opponents take at least 25 3-pointers, his record is pretty good.
He’s right.
In his fourth season at Georgia State, Hunter and the Panthers are 21-7 when teams fire up at least 25 3-pointers.
“The odds say that you aren’t going to make that many 3s and you aren’t going to win games,” he said. “It’s a harder shot.”
Texas-Arlington, one of the teams that had a lot of success against the Georgia State and its various zones, will be at the GSU Sports Arena on Thursday for the annual “Barefoot for Bare Feet” game in which Hunter and his staff will coach without shoes or socks to help the charity Samaritan’s Feet raise awareness of the millions of children around the world you need proper footwear.
Texas-Arlington made 13 of its 25 3-pointers last season at the Sports Arena, but the Panthers won 101-91 in overtime, underscoring Hunter’s point.
“It was probably our best offensive game of the season,” Texas-Arlington coach Scott Cross said.
The Panthers are 4-2 this season when opponents attempt at least 25 3-pointers, including Saturday’s win against Troy, when the Trojans made 13 of 27 3-pointers.
Their success, and that of the Mavericks last season, illustrated the fine line that Hunter and defense walks each night.
It takes only one shooter to get hot and opponents can stay in games. Troy had two hot shooters last week. Texas-Arlington had two last season in Reger Dowell and Jamel Outler, who hit six each. To stop Outler from going off again, Georgia State’s Ryann Green said the Panthers must locate him on every possession.
“They know they are going to come in here hyped,” Green said. “They have confidence. They could have beaten us. We’ve got to lock down those shooters.”
Saying and doing are different things. Hunter acknowledges his team’s 3-point defense was better earlier in the season than it has been the since Sun Belt play began. He thinks that’s because there are have been more games and fewer practices.
But Hunter won’t change the defense from zone to an identifiable man to man for two reasons:
No. 1, he believes in it. As he said, you don’t stay a coach for more than 20 years unless what you are doing is working.
No. 2, he does play a camouflaged man-to-man at times. Hunter refused to provide any examples because he said he didn’t want to give away any strategies. He said the switch usually happens off ball-screens.
“Get stops,” Georgia State forward T.J. Shipes said of the point of the defense. “That’s it.”
Hunter is proud to be one of few coaches in Division I that play zone defenses exclusively. Troy coach Phil Cunningham said that uniqueness makes it hard to prepare for because most teams work against man-to-man defense in the preseason and practices because that’s what they use.
Hunter asks why more people don’t request that teams whose man-to-man defenses are getting torn up don’t switch to zones.
“It’s not who we are, it’s not what we do,” he said.
He will make adjustments in games, often switching from zone to another, sometimes in the middle of possessions.
Teams such as Troy or Texas-Arlington will sometimes get hot and there’s not much that any defense can do to cool them off. Hunter said the averages will even out.
For example, after the Texas-Arlington shot so well at the Sports Arena — in part because Cross said Outler was “unconscious” — the Mavericks missed 13 of 15 3-pointers in a 77-49 loss at home.
With the various defensive permutations, opponents are 35.5 percent of their 3-pointers, part of an overall percentage of 41 on all field goals.
More often than not, as the record indicates, Hunter’s tactics will work. The Panthers are 72-43 in Hunter’s fourth season, at 62.6 it’s a slightly lower winning percentage than the 74 percent of games won with the 25 3-pointer measurement.
“You have to be consistent,” Hunter said. “One thing we have been for last 20-plus years.”
