It’s never good when the opponent scores the first 17 points of a game. It’s especially bad when the opposition is ranked as the ninth-best mid-major team in the country.
That was the case on Thursday when Georgia State fell way behind early and suffered an 83-63 loss to James Madison on Thursday in Harrisonburg, Va.
“I thought our guys came out flat,” Georgia State coach Jonas Hayes said. “You can’t dig yourself that deep of a hole against a team that good and expect to get the result you want.”
Georgia State (11-14, 5-8 Sun Belt) had its two-game winning streak broken and will play its final road game on Saturday against Old Dominion.
The Panthers were led by reserves Julian Mackey, who scored a season-high 15 points, and true freshman Malik Ferguson with 12 points, his career-best against a Division I opponent.
“Both of those guys prepare and whenever their name and number is called, they’ll be ready,” Hayes said. “We needed a little bit of a spark and they were able to provide it for us.”
Leslie Nkereuwem scored 15, his fifth straight game in double-digits.
Terrence Edwards Jr. and T.J. Bickerstaff, a pair of Georgia natives, combined for 47 points to lead James Madison (23-3, 10-3 Sun Belt), which set a school record for wins.
Edwards, a 6-foot-5 redshirt junior from Tucker, scored 28 points, one shy of matching his season high. Bickerstaff, a 6-9 graduate senior from Sandy Creek High School by way of Boston College, scored 21 points, including 11-for-12 from the line, with nine rebounds.
In its last road game at Louisiana, Georgia State fell behind 18-4, but fought back for a 78-69 win. That script did not work this time. Things started out poorly and only got worse. The Dukes later added an 11-0 spurt, which was part of a 17-2 run, and led by 31 points with 6:22 left in the half.
“It was all-encompassing,” Hayes said. “We didn’t start the game with the kind of intensity that I would have liked. And when you get down to a team like that, you’re basically signing your death warrant.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Georgia State showed some fight with an 11-0 run of its own, a stretch that included three 3-pointers from Ferguson. He had not played in the last eight games, but got a chance when Lucas Taylor and Brenden Tucker got in foul trouble.
James Madison did little wrong in the first half, shooting 58% from the field, outrebounding Georgia State 23-13, outscoring the Panthers 23-6 in the paint, and committing just three turnovers. The result was a 51-26 halftime lead.
“Great start. For the first ten minutes we were unbelievable,” said James Madison coach Mark Byington. “The second half we never got any rhythm. We’ve got to be better at closing out.”
Georgia State got hot in the second half and used a 20-4 run to draw within 13 points with 7:55 left. But the Panthers could get no closer and JMU was able to pull away at the line, going 13-for-14 in the final eight minutes.
“We don’t take any moral victories but I thought our guys responded to the challenge,” Hayes said. “It just wasn’t enough to overcome those holes we dug for ourselves. That hole was way too large to overcome, especially against a team like James Madison.”
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