The Jonas Hayes Era at Georgia State got off the ground Monday and if the first day of practice is any indication of things to come, the Panthers are going to field a fast-paced basketball team that enjoys playing hard-nosed defense.
Hayes had almost lost his voice at the end of the first official workout after putting the team through an active, enthusiastic session at the school’s noisy practice gym. The intense practice ended with everyone gathered in a circle, many of them with arms around each other, as Hayes offered a few parting words.
“Everybody wants to play offense, but to have a strong-minded identity of being the toughest and the nastiest team in the Sun Belt, that’s also committed to getting better daily, that’s what we’re about,” Hayes said.
Hayes was hired in the spring to replace Rob Lanier, who guided GSU to the 2022 Sun Belt Conference Tournament title and a spot in the NCAA Tournament, where they lost a competitive game to No. 1-ranked Gonzaga. Hayes, an assistant at the University of Georgia, was working a bit of magic himself. He became the interim coach at Xavier late in the season and led the Musketeers to the NIT Championship.
Hayes was the primary target of the search committee, who announced his hiring the first week of April. This week he’s finally getting settled into his new home on the south side of town, not far from where he and his brother – and assistant coach Jarvis – grew up and starred at Douglass High School.
“I cannot believe it. I’m still like a kid in a candy store,” Hayes said. “I tell people all the team – I know I sound like a broken record to myself – but if you’d told me 10 years ago to script my career and script it as a best-case scenario, I don’t think it would turn out like it has.
“You’re talking about somebody who recognizes how unbelievably blessed I am to be in my city, where I was born and raised, a stone’s throw from where I’m sitting. Never in a million years did I think that I’d be the head man at Georgia State. It is not lost on me how blessed and fortunate I am.”
Hayes has an instant head start on any other candidate who might have been chosen. He has recruited the city’s basketball-rich area for years and has street cred because of his background and his well-earned reputation.
It certainly helped him reap some talented transfers who wanted to join him this season.
Dwon Odom, a 6-foot-2 sophomore from St. Francis School in Alpharetta, had played two seasons at Xavier and had already decided to enter the transfer portal when he decided to join Hayes. Jamaine Mann, a 6-6 sophomore from Dutchtown High in Hampton, transferred from Vanderbilt. Brendan Tucker, a 6-3 junior from Dacula High School, transferred from the College of Charleston. Hayes has known them all for years.
“Dwon had put his name in the portal a couple of days before I got the job and in my mind I’m thinking, I would love to bring him on. I get named on April 4th and he commits like two days later,” Hayes said. “I’ve known Brendan Tucker since he was in middle school and had braces. I’ve known Jamaine since middle school and I coached his brother (Charles) at Georgia. He committed almost immediately after my press conference.
“The connection I had with those three individuals has been long standing. I think there was a built-in level of mutual trust with them and their families which has allowed me to have all three of those guys here.”
Hayes also brought in sturdy 6-9 freshman Edward Nnamoko, a native of Nigeria who played at Riviera Prep in Miami.
“Jarvis had been recruiting him for a while, so he was already familiar with Georgia State,” Hayes said. “I think he has a chance to be really good.”
Hayes said the holdovers from last year’s team have also embraced the new regime. Ja’Heim Hudson, Evan Johnson, Collin Moore all played significant minutes on last year’s team. The Panthers graduated four seniors and two transferred out – 6-foot-10 Jalen Thomas, who transferred to Butler, and the mercurial Nelson Phillips, who transferred to Troy.
“For the most part they’ve all stayed and they’ve dug in,” Hayes said. “They’ve got their feet in the ground and they’re dug in.”
Georgia State plays an exhibition against Morehouse on Oct. 31 – the first contest in the new GSU Convocation Center. The first official game will be Nov. 7 against Coastal Georgia, with the much-awaited game against Georgia Tech on Nov. 12.
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