Because the Sun Belt Conference season lasts a marathon-like 20 games, Georgia State men’s basketball coach Ron Hunter said his team’s upcoming games at Arkansas State on Thursday and at Arkansas-Little Rock on Saturday don’t carry any more significance than any other.
“Whenever you think something is about to happen, something different happens (in the Sun Belt),” Hunter said. “We are just focused on the next game.”
It’s true that there will still be 10 games to make up ground should the Panthers lose both or plenty of time to give up ground should the Panthers win both.
But these games are important because it may give the team and its supporters some idea of what to expect when the conference tournament begins in New Orleans in March.
After winning four consecutive games, the Panthers have lost 2 of 3 and are now 5-3 in the conference, tied with Louisiana-Lafayette and Arkansas State for third and two games behind leaders Arkansas-Little Rock (7-1). Because the conference is deeper than most expected with the play of Arkansas-Little Rock and Texas-Arlington, the 10th place team, South Alabama (3-6), isn’t too far behind the third-place teams.
The top four teams at the end of the regular season receive byes to the quarterfinals of the tournament. The top two seeds receive double-byes to the semifinals, meaning they need to win just two games to clinch the automatic berth in the NCAA tournament. The Panthers lost in the championship game two years and won it last year, where they went on to defeat Baylor before losing to Xavier.
Should the Panthers sweep the next two games, it could provide the momentum to carry them to a top-two seed.
“It’s too early to worry about seeding,” Hunter said.
While Hunter won’t look ahead too much, he said the team does have a chance to be pretty good when tournament play starts, if it can stay healthy and if it can continue to refine what it does well.
The question is what does the team do well?
It can play pretty well on defense. Though they gave up 87 points in a loss to Louisiana-Lafayette and 76 two games later in its recent loss at Appalachian State, the Panthers are among the leaders in fewest points allowed (66.8) in conference play.
The offense, however, is a different story. The Panthers are last in conference play with an average of 65.6 points per game, and among the last in Division I with an all-games average of 66.2.
Though the Panthers added Indiana transfer Jeremy Hollowell, Samford transfer Isaiah Williams and sharpshooting freshman Jeff Thomas, the offense is having a hard time replacing R.J. Hunter and Ryan Harrow, who are both playing professionally.
“I think we’ve got people spoiled,” Ron Hunter said. “At the mid-major level, you lose two pros and something has to give.
“It’s not how many you score, it’s how many you win.”
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