This was the Georgia State men’s basketball team that coach Ron Hunter wanted to see.
Two days after a disappointing loss at Troy that snapped the team’s 14-game win streak, Georgia State bounced back to blow out Texas State 68-41 on Monday at the GSU Sports Arena. The Panthers limited Texas State to 29.4-percent shooting and forced 13 turnovers.
“We wanted to make a statement defensively,” Hunter said.” That was not us Saturday. We were embarrassed. The last 48 hours haven’t been really good in our program. No one has smiled. No one has been happy. We’ve been angry because we felt like we let something get away.”
Georgia State (18-7, 11-1) kept its three-game lead in the loss column over Western Kentucky with six games remaining in the Sun Belt regular season. The top two teams will receive byes to the semifinals of the conference tournament. The Panthers will host Louisiana-Monroe on Thursday in the second game of the three-game homestand.
Defense wasn’t the only positive.
Ryan Harrow reached a milestone on Monday, scoring his 1,000th career point. He finished with a game-high 17 points. The historic point, which includes those scored when he played at N.C. State and Kentucky, came on a free throw with 10:38 left. He transferred to Georgia State before this season.
He said he didn’t know that he was on the verge of reaching the mark. He said his dad was signalling something to him from the stands, but he couldn’t tell what it was.
Harrow, who played at Walton High, then began to hear the student section chanting, “That’s 1,000,” when he figured out what his dad was trying to tell him.
Harrow said he became so nervous he thought he would miss the next shot.
“I’m happy to do it here at Georgia State,” he said. “Come back home like I always planned. It’s just a great feeling.”
He became the second Georgia State player to hit the milestone in three days after R.J. Hunter reached it in last week’s loss to Troy. Including Devonta White, Georgia State has three starters who have scored at least 1,000 points in their careers.
A fourth, Manny Atkins, needs just seven points after scoring 15 on Monday.
Points figured to be as precious as salt during icy weather. While Texas State arrived in Atlanta as the lowest scoring team (63.3 points per game) in the conference, it also had the best scoring defense (66.2 points per game).
But few expected just how slowly the game would start. Harrow scored the first basket 3:21 into the game after a comedy of poor shots and turnovers by both teams.
The pace didn’t get much better. The Panthers led 10-7 on two Harrow free throws with less than nine minutes remaining in the half.
Then Georgia State finally started to heat up, finishing the half with a 10-0 run to take a 28-14 lead. Texas State came within a point of matching the lowest point total allowed by Georgia State in a half in school history. That mark of 13 points was set by William & Mary two years ago in the first half of a 66-34 Georgia State win.
Georgia State’s hot hand continued after the break. Manny Atkins scored eight points as the Panthers started with a 17-2 run to open a 45-16 lead. The final play in the run came after Harrow tiptoed the baseline before passing to a trailing Atkins. He waited a second for Curtis Washington, who took the pass and threw down a two-handed dunk that caused the fans in the Sports Arena to leave their seats.
Atkins wasn’t done. After Texas State scored its second basket of the half, Atkins hit two long jumpers to push the Panthers’ lead to 50-18.
Hunter said it was a nice change in performance and attitude compared to the Troy game. Before that game, as the players left their huddle to take the court for the first time, he said they chanted ,”1, 2, 3, 15.”
He said that’s the first time he heard them talk about the school-record winning streak.
Now, Hunter said the pressure is off and the team can focus once again on trying to win the Sun Belt tournament.
“The last 20 minutes was the team I expected to see,” Hunter said.
