The shot went in.
The coach went over.
Georgia State is moving on.
R.J. Hunter drilled a 30-foot 3-pointer with 2.8 seconds left to lift Georgia State past Baylor 57-56 on Thursday in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
“Thank God for that 50-footer I threw in,” said Hunter, who finished with 16 points.
As the shot — and the wishes — of the Panthers fans softly dropped through the net, coach and father Ron Hunter fell off the rolling office chair he was being forced to coach from after partially tearing his Achilles while celebrating that his team made the NCAA Tournament.
The Panthers (25-9) will play Xavier in the third round Saturday in Jacksonville. Ron Hunter urged those in Atlanta to come down and support the team.
“We need some people to drive down here, man” he said. “If you want a bus, I’ll pay for a bus.”
R.J. Hunter said he saw his dad “cannonball” off the chair.
“I told him they’ve got to get him a chair with a back or something because that wasn’t going to work,” he said.
Ron Hunter said just before the shot he was trying to yell to R.J. to take a 3-pointer because he didn’t want to go into overtime after watching the team fight back. There was no designed play. Instead there were a series of ball screens led by T.J. Shipes. Hunter got the small bit of space he needed by curling left off a screen near the top of the 3-point line.
“I had no doubt (it was going in),” Ron Hunter said. “It was his turn.”
Forgetting for the first time all game that he was injured, Hunter raised his arms to signify the shot was good and tried to jump to celebrate before he realized that the cast on his left leg wasn’t going to allow that to happen.
As Ron Hunter was falling off the chair, his wife and R.J.’s mother, Amy, and older sister, Jasmine, were jumping and screaming with the hundreds of Georgia State fans sitting on the other side of the court.
“I knew the shot was going in,” Amy said. “Of course, I think they are all going in.”
It was an unexpected comeback.
Baylor’s matchup zone bottled up Hunter most of the day, limiting him to four points in the game’s first 16 minutes.
With Hunter struggling and scoring threat Ryan Harrow unable to play because of a strained hamstring, Isaiah Dennis, Markus Crider and Ryann Green carried the offense in the first half. The trio is more known for their defense than their offense. Eventually, the percentages began to catch up, and the Panthers were held to just one field goal for a stretch of almost eight minutes as Baylor turned a one-point deficit into the 12-point lead with 2:53 left in the second half.
And then R.J. Hunter made two free throws with 2:39 left. Baylor missed a short jumper, and Scott Drew’s team finally made a mistake on defense and left Hunter open. He made a 3-pointer to cut the Bears’ lead to seven with 1:34 left.
“That got him going,” Drew said.
After a steal by Crider, Hunter made a running bank shot, followed by a steal and layup to pull Georgia State within 56-53 with 1:21 left.
The turnover — one of 21 by Baylor against Georgia State’s press — was the bit of “March Madness,” as Drew described it that the Panthers needed.
“Twenty-one turnovers, that’s not who we are,” Drew said.
Still, there was more magic needed.
The Bears’ Rico Gathers missed a dunk with 22 seconds left because Shipes got a bit of the ball on the way up. The miss which kept Georgia State trailing by three.
After a free throw by Dennis, Baylor’s Kenny Chery, an 83 percent free-throw shooter this season, missed the first in a one-and-one opportunity to keep Georgia State within two. Shipes grabbed that rebound with 14 seconds left to set up the final play.
The shot went in.
The coach went over.
Georgia State is moving on.
“I said yesterday that if you got to the five-minute mark and we were within a couple of possessions, we would win the game,” Ron Hunter said. “And so the kids believed, and my offspring here hit an unbelievable shot.”
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