Shortly after his Panthers scored six points in seven seconds just to get to overtime, Georgia State coach Ron Hunter broke out a word rarely uttered in a college basketball gym near you.
That first 3-point shot made was as off-balance as a one-legged ostrich with vertigo. Shocking to those in the seats, but teammates knew R.J. Hunter, the coach’s son, had a gift for the ridiculous. “When we’re playing pickup, we see that all time; he’ll do something that leaves me scratching my head,” guard Manny Atkins said.
The other, off an inbounds pass to senior Devonta White, came with the last grain of sand halfway down the hourglass.
So who could blame the coach?
“Magical,” Hunter said in the wake of an overtime win over Texas-Arlington a week ago that broke the old school record of 11 consecutive victories.
For some time, magic has been in short supply for local devotees of the college game. And it is a tad early to dump all the expectations of March upon one urban campus. Still, Georgia State, now with 14 consecutive wins, unbeaten in its conference, has some hocus pocus going for it.
In early December, the Panthers were gaining notice — as one of the more disappointing teams in the land. Both NBC Sports and Yahoo Sports said so right there on the Internet. Their ample backcourt gifts had led to a 3-6 record. Alabama overpowered them. Then they staged a furious comeback only to be undone in overtime at Southern Miss. That was Dec. 7.
They haven’t lost since.
Now Georgia State is transforming into the story of a little team that is an intriguing mosaic, a collection of odd pieces that makes up a very watchable whole.
When the fast-talking Hunter was dislodged from his position at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis in 2011 to work Georgia State’s cozy, walk-up studio apartment of a fieldhouse, he had a well-established blueprint in place. Seventeen years at IUPUI prepared him for team-building at a big-city, low-profile program. He was well-practiced at weaving his illusions from the coarsest thread.
The formula at play with these Panthers goes like this:
- Inherit a steady player, now a senior leader (White).
- Have a son who doesn't want to run away from you when it's time to go to college. It helps, also, if, while as thin as a fencepost, he still can carry a heavy scoring load.
- And tap into the wide vein of restlessness and dissatisfaction out there in the modern college marketplace. There is constant movement in college basketball — more than 500 players were involved in Division I transfers in advance of the 2013-14 season. And Hunter eagerly exploits that.
There are multiple elements involved, but the power of the transfer is most telling in Georgia State’s run. Three of the Panthers starters began their college experience at larger, more noted institutions (Atkins at Virginia Tech, Curtis Washington at USC and Ryan Harrow at North Carolina State and Kentucky).
There is an unspoken stigma about the transfer — that he is running away from some kind of trouble, that he is damaged goods, a factory second. Yet you likely have never met a coach who celebrates the transfer player quite like Hunter.
“I knew when I took this job from Day 1 it wasn’t going to work with me just taking high school kids,” he said.
Many of these players’ foundations have been built on wheels, the coach said. They changed AAU teams, changed high schools, it is a part of the culture.
And what is he, Hunter asks, but a coach who transferred from IUPUI to Georgia State? And who is university president Mark Becker but a transfer from South Carolina? Rank-and-file students transfer all the time — the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center said 32 percent of full-time students fit that mold. And Georgia State has made a nice living catering to kids who began their studies elsewhere.
“But when an athlete does it, it becomes like a taboo thing,” Hunter said.
“At our level we’re not going to get the Ryan Harrows right out of high school,” he said. “I’ll recruit ’em. We recruit a lot of kids that people don’t think we should be recruiting, but we recruit them thinking they might come back.”
While at IUPUI, Hunter drove to Kentucky to watch Curtis Washington play, only to discover that the 6-foot-9 prospect committed to USC while Hunter was on the road. The coach fumed. But look who’s in the post now for the Panthers.
Transfers, the right kind of ones anyway, come to Hunter, he said, often changed in positive ways. Maybe they are humbled a bit, more receptive to coaching, hungry to prove themselves.
“What you want to make sure is that they love basketball. If they love the crowds and all the outside stuff, you got the wrong one. You got to make sure they love playing,” he said.
“Most kids coming out of high school choose a college based on the crowd, the size of the arena, the I’m-going-to-get-to-the-NBA (attitude) — all the wrong reasons. That’s why our transfer rates are so high. So, by the time they come back to you those things aren’t as important anymore.”
Harrow, once a star at Walton High, saw the bright lights of Raleigh and Lexington before transferring home to be nearer his father. Mark Harrow suffered a stroke the summer of 2012.
When he arrived, Harrow was so concerned about fitting in that Hunter had to caution him not to over-pass, not to be too selfless. He is the Panthers’ second-leading scorer, just behind R.J. Hunter’s 20 per game.
Going from Rupp Arena to the GSU Sports Arena (capacity 3,400) has been not the shock it would seem, Harrow said.
“I’m extremely happy. We’re winning games. I get to see my family and friends. The boys have accepted me. Coach Hunter has made me into a better player, a more mature player,” he said. Best of all, he has one more season of eligibility remaining.
Winning has greased the adjustment. There is an excitement to scale going on at Georgia State, with the crowds growing steadily in number and volume. The school-record winning streak has grabbed the attention of an easily distracted campus. No matter how many in a row they win, however, one slip in the Sun Belt Tournament and their real objective — the NCAAs — would wash away like a sand castle at high tide.
Sounding very much the coach’s son, R.J. Hunter said, “The streak is kind of nonsense. Makes us look like we’re perfect. We have so many flaws, so many things to still take care of. That streak seems minute to us.”
For it is March where the real magic lives.
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