Despite losing R.J. Hunter, the leading scorer in school history, and Ryan Harrow, another dynamic starter, and two more starters from last year’s NCAA tournament team, Georgia State men’s basketball is off to its best start under coach Ron Hunter.
The Panthers are 7-2 and have won four consecutive games, including three in a row over teams from Conference USA. Georgia State will open defense of its Sun Belt regular season and tournament titles at Texas-Arlington, one of the conference’s surprise teams, on Wednesday.
“I felt like a lot of people thought last year’s team was the best team,” guard Kevin Ware said. “I feel like we have a lot of guys that can really go this year and we are proving that right now with a 7-2 record.”
The Panthers have risen to No. 59 in ESPN’s RPI, but has done so against a strength of schedule ranked No. 145, which means winning the Sun Belt tournament is most likely the only path back to the NCAA tournament.
Here are five things the team has learned about itself during its non-conference season.
The offense is improving. It seems odd, but one of the questions about the team before the season was, on a team featuring a lot of guys that can score, who would score? It was relevant because while this year's team had as many as four guys that could lead the team in scoring, three of them (Jeremy Hollowell, Jeff Thomas and Isaiah Williams) didn't play last season.
Making game-planning easier for defenses, everyone knew where the points were coming from last year: R.J. Hunter or Harrow, one of whom led the team in scoring in 34 of 35 games last season.
“When R.J. or Ryan didn’t score in double figures we probably lost that game,” Ron Hunter said. “It’s not that way now.”
Now, it’s not that easy to scout the Panthers. In nine games the team has already had three players lead the team in scoring, each at least twice. The Panthers have won when leading scorer Hollowell, a transfer from Indiana who sat out last year, has totaled four points.
“I think we are harder to guard,” Hunter said. “We move the ball around.”
The point guard is settled. The offense is starting to spark with the insertion of Williams as point guard. He and Isaiah Dennis alternated starts in blocks of two or three, but it seems as if Williams has the job for now with Dennis coming in to pare with Ware as a defensive stopper in the backcourt.
Williams, a transfer from Samford who sat out last year, can hit 3-pointers, even though his percentage (30.4) isn’t as high as it was at Samford (39.0). What he does well is find teammates. Hunter is thrilled that Williams has a team-leading 27 turnovers compared to 10 turnovers.
The outside shooting is back. The offense also started to open up once Thomas' shots started falling. The freshman with the pretty shooting stroke suffered a horrible start by missing 21 of his first 25 attempts. But he began to get comfortable and has since hit 13 of 29 to increase his scoring average to 5.9 points per game.
Hunter said when Thomas gets the ball he can hear opposing coaches say “Shooter, shooter, shooter.”
Thomas’ ability to hit shots outside has opened up the inside for drives to the basket by Williams and Kevin Ware, who is averaging 12.8 points per game on 47.6-percent shooting, and high-post play from Hollowell and Markus Crider.
Spark off the bench found. Like Thomas, Crider also struggled to start the season, which Hunter said he typically does. Looking to get him going and to get points from the bench, Hunter replaced Crider with T.J. Shipes in the starting lineup in three of the past five games. In each of those five games Crider scored at least 10 points after only doing so once in the first four games. Crider is averaging a career-high 9.8 points while playing 27.2 minutes per game.
“Now Markus is going against a tired first-team guy, or a second-team guy,” Hunter said. “He’s more talented than a second-team guy. It’s been better with him in that position.”
The defense is good. Regardless of who is playing, Georgia State's defense is allowing 59.3 points per game, the 11th best total in Division I.
“Defensively we have a chance to be really special,” Hunter said.
Despite the shorter shot clock this season, just one team (IUPUI) has scored more than 70 points against the Panthers.
Six teams have shot less than 40 percent. Just two (IUPUI and Wright State) have shot better than percent from the 3-point line. Two teams (UAB and Old Dominion) have had more assists than turnovers.
Despite the new players, Hunter said he’s not surprised that that defense is playing well. He is surprised that it’s playing so well for so long.
“Never had a team play it at this level consistently,” he said. “Usually, there’s one or two bad games and we come back to it.”
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