Georgia State’s men’s basketball team has done at least three things right during its six-game winning streak. The Panthers have limited turnovers, made free throws and seen their best shooter, R.J. Hunter, heat up.
All three will need to continue when the Panthers visit Western Kentucky for a key Sun Belt game Thursday.
“It’s the biggest game of the year; both teams are 2-0 and arguably the two best teams in the Sun Belt,” said Hunter, who has averaged 24.2 points per game during the winning streak.
The Hilltoppers (10-5) were picked in the preseason to win the Sun Belt, with the Panthers (9-6) picked fourth. However, the Panthers were selected by a few in the national media as a team to watch for in the NCAA tournament because of the addition of Kentucky transfer Ryan Harrow.
But Harrow was only part of the reason. Hunter averaged 17 points per game last season as a freshman and was expected to improve upon that this season.
Then Hunter and Panthers got off to a slow start, losing five of their first seven games.
Part of that didn’t surprise Georgia State coach Ron Hunter, who said his son has always started slowly.
“Something I’ve seen since he’s been in the sixth grade,” he said.
It wasn’t that Hunter wasn’t scoring — he averaged 15.6 points per game — but he wasn’t shooting well. R.J. said he was pressing. He said he tried to stop worrying about his offense and focused his energy on his defense, which helped him to relax. As he started to relax, his fundamentals — proper footwork and using his legs when shooting — returned and his shots started to fall. During the past five games, he has made 25 of 50 3-pointers.
“Once he gets into a groove, he usually stays there for a long time,” Ron Hunter said.
Just like Hunter, the team has slowly started to turn things around because they have also found a winning formula: they are taking care of the ball and hitting free throws.
The Panthers’ turnover margin (5.47) and assist-to-turnover ratio (1.6) rank first in the conference. Additionally, their free-throw percentage (76.2) ranks first in the Sun Belt. Those stats offset that the Panthers are being outrebounded by almost five per game.
“If you do those two things, it doesn’t matter how well you rebound or if you don’t play defense as well as you would like, you will always be in games,” Ron Hunter said.
And, though it’s just the third Sun Belt contest for those teams, Thursday’s game is big. Georgia State would like to grab that road win in their attempt to earn a No. 1 or 2 seed, which comes with byes to the semifinals, in the conference tournament.
It should be an interesting matchup. The Hilltoppers are turnover prone (minus-.13 margin) and don’t play good 3-point defense (37.4 percentage for opponents), which would seem to play to Georgia State’s strengths.
While R.J. said it was a big game, his father is trying to not put too much importance on the contest.
“It’s only important if we can get a road win on them,” Ron Hunter said. “Home teams have pressure, they have to win. These two teams will be in it for the long haul. If we can get a road win, we can get a leg up.”
