Playing in its first Sun Belt game in more than 30 years, Georgia State defeated Troy 81-72 in men’s basketball on Thursday at the GSU Sports Arena.
R.J. Hunter scored a game-high 25 points with seven steals, and Ryan Harrow scored 20 more with seven assists as the Panthers (8-6, 1-0) won their fifth consecutive game. They will be at South Alabama on Saturday.
Though Georgia State didn’t play consistently tough defense, it was good enough in spurts to force a season-high 23 turnovers that it turned into 33 points. The Panthers needed most of them because the smaller Trojans out-rebounded them 36-22, including grabbing 12 on offensive rebounds.
The teams traded 11-0 runs in the first half, but Georgia State scored five points in the final three seconds to grab a 44-31 halftime lead. Markus Crider scored his first basket on a dunk, and after Troy threw the ball away on the inbounds pass, Hunter was fouled shooting a 3-pointer. He hit all three free throws for the final points in the half.
Georgia State stretched its lead to 16, the largest of the game to that point, on a layup by Hunter early in the second half.
But Troy wasn’t going roll out the Sun Belt welcome mat that easily.
The Trojans used 7-3 run, capped by a three-point play by Tevin Calhoun, to cut the Panthers’ lead to 10 with 14:03 left.
Georgia State pushed its lead to 15 on two Harrow free throws, a Hunter jumper and a steal and free throw by Jaylen Hinton with 12:20 left. After a Troy basket, Hinton added another steal and layup to keep the lead at 14.
Troy cut it back to nine, 60-51, on baskets by Hunter Williams and Kevin Thomas with less than 11 minutes remaining.
The Panthers put the game out of reach after consecutive dunks by Curtis Washington and Harrow gave their team a 73-59 lead with 5:50 left.
Manny Atkins, who scored a career-high 27 points in Sunday’s win over East Carolina, finished with nine. Washington added 10 points.
Williams led Troy (5-8, 0-1) with 18 points on 6-of-9 3-pointers.
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