R.J. Hunter didn’t want to admit it, but his dad helped him smooth out his shooting stroke during the past week.
With coach Ron Hunter’s advice to step into his shot ringing in his ears, Hunter scored a game-high 27 points to lift Georgia State to a season-opening 97-78 victory over Southern Poly on Saturday at the GSU Sports Arena. Hunter, who missed seven of his 10 3-point attempts in the two exhibition games, made five of his 11 attempts Saturday.
“My mother (helped me),” R.J. Hunter said. “I was having a tough time. Calling my mother later at night, ‘What do I do? What do I do?’ She gave me some advice about my footwork.
“No, my dad did help me this week. When your coach knows you better than you do, that’s a huge advantage for me. He came in with great advice about stepping into my shot. It paid off.”
With Hunter knocking down 3-pointers, Ryan Harrow stepped in to add 20 points and Devonta White 14 more.
On defense, center Curtis Washington tied a school record with nine blocked shots.
But Ron Hunter wasn’t entirely happy with the team’s defense, particularly the play of White and Harrow. He said they need to grab at least nine rebounds per game. They combined for four. Hunter said he will bring assistant coach Everick Sullivan off the bench to play guard if one, or both, of his guards don’t pick up the intensity.
“They’ve got to have more resistance,” Hunter said. “Our defense is based on pressure at the top, and we aren’t getting it. We will make a change if we don’t get better.”
He also wasn’t happy with the play of his bench, which scored only 17 points and grabbed 13 of the team’s 43 rebounds.
“I’ll just call timeouts and play the same five guys,” Hunter said. “Those guys have to get better.”
It looked as if the Panthers had control with a 39-16 lead on a layup by Harrow with 6:38 left in the first half. But then the Panthers began shooting more and more 3-pointers, missing five consecutive. Southern Poly turned those misses into a 17-0 run that cut Georgia State’s lead to 39-33 with 2:21 left in the half.
But Georgia State closed the half with a 10-0 run, capped by a NBA-length 3-pointer by Hunter just before the buzzer, to push the lead back to 49-33.
“He gives me absolutely no credit,” Ron Hunter joked.
Etc.: The Panthers were without center Denny Burguillos, who was held out for precautionary reasons. Burguillos was elbowed in the side of the head in the Panthers' last exhibition game, against Fort Valley State. He was cleared by team doctors after the game. A similar incident happened in the first half of Saturday's game. Southern Poly's Kevin Phillip was ejected with 16:45 left after an official saw him use his elbow to hit Washington in the head.
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