When Georgia State’s Toneari Lane shot the ball from the corner in front of his own bench, teammate Lucas Taylor watched and started the other way. So did Dwon Odom, who passed him the ball. Both instinctively knew what was going to happen when the lefty lofted it toward the basket.
They knew the ball was going in.
Lane’s 3-pointer, which hit nothing but net, came with 1.8 seconds and gave Georgia State a 72-71 win over Coastal Carolina on Wednesday before a rowdy crowd on Frat Night at the GSU Convocation Center.
“I knew the ball was going in when it left my hands,” Lane said. “I can tell by the rotation.”
Coastal called timeout to set up a final play but threw the inbounds pass out of bounds. Georgia State inbounded the ball and the clock expired.
It was an improbable win. Georgia State was outrebounded 54-31, got beaten 19-5 on second-chance points, beaten 30-22 in the paint and had made only 6 of its first 27 3-pointers until the final two minutes. That’s when Odom delivered a 3-pointer that tied the game and Lane connected on the game-winner.
“I don’t take too many,” said Odom, who was 2-for-2 on 3-pointers and finished with 14 points, seven assists and five rebounds. “But I make a note to stay prepared and my teammates trusted me and they kept telling me to shoot it when I’m open.”
Odom hit his 3-pointer with 29.1 seconds remaining to knot the game at 65-65, only to have Coastal Carolina take a two-point lead when freshman Jacob Meyer calmly made a jumper, giving him 23 for the night, with 10 seconds left.
Georgia State, with no timeouts left, hurried downcourt and when Odom spotted Lane in the corner, got him the ball and Lane delivered.
“We knew we didn’t have any timeouts so we called the set and (Lane) knew exactly where he needed to go and (Odom) found him,” Georgia State coach Jonas Hayes said. “And he stood up and shot it. Our guys shoot with a lot of confidence and we shoot enough of those. If you’re going to leave the best shooter in the conference wide open in the corner, I expect him to make that. This is a shot he makes every day.”
Lane, who leads the conference with a 33 percent success rate on 3s, finished with a team-high 16 points. He was 4-for-9 on 3-pointers, The Panthers also got 15 points from Taylor and 12 points from Brenden Tucker.
Georgia State (13-14, 7-8 Sun Belt) moved one step closer to avoiding a first-round game at next month’s conference tournament in Pensacola, Fla. A win on Saturday against Texas State would almost guarantee it.
“We lost our character a little bit, we lost our resolve a little bit,” Hayes said. “But I really don’t care what it looks like as long as we get our of there with a win.”
Coastal Carolina (8-18,5-10) also got 11 points from Kylan Blackmon, 10 points and eight rebounds from Kevin Easley, and 14 rebounds from Ginka Ojiako.
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