The James Madison team that flew into town on Saturday is only a shell of the one that won the Sun Belt Conference Tournament and reached the second round of the NCAA playoffs, but the Dukes still had enough to handle Georgia State.
James Madison shot lights out and put away the Panthers 86-79 at the GSU Convocation Center. It was the fourth straight loss for Georgia State, which will hit the road to play at Marshall on Thursday and at Appalachian State on Saturday.
Georgia State trailed by 21 with 6:36 left to play but made seven 3-pointers and whittled the lead to five points with eight seconds remaining. James Madison ended the improbable comeback bid with a pair of free throws with six seconds left.
“The effort that we showed the last 3:32 I thought was admirable,” GSU coach Jonas Hayes said. “But at the end of the day it wasn’t enough. We’ll go back to the drawing board.”
Georgia State (7-14, 3-6 Sun Belt) got 20 points from Cesare Edwards, who picked up two early fouls and played only nine minutes in the first half. The versatile senior, normally a force around the basket, stepped outside and made four 3-pointers in the final five minutes to spark the rally.
Toneari Lane scored 19 points, including five 3-pointers. Nick McMullen added 15 points and nine rebounds and Jelani Hamilton scored 14. Malachi Brown had nine assists.
“We all just looked at each other and said we had to try to get this deficit back to within a single possession and try to get a win,” Lane said. “If we start that in the beginning of the game, over the course of the game, we’ll be in a great position to win at the end of the game.”
James Madison (12-9, 5-4) had five players in double figures, led by Bryce Lindsay with 19 and Xavier Brown and Mark Freeman with 17 each.
The Dukes did a lot of their damage from the perimeter. They made 13 of 27 3-pointers – four each from Brown and Lindsay. It matched the most 3s allowed by GSU this season and was the fifth straight game the Panthers have allowed 10 or more from distance.
“We’ve been typically a good team that has been guarding the 3 well,” Hayes said. “That has kind of slipped the last couple games. They made 13 of them and they made them at a 48 percent clip. We have to have a little bit more urgency is getting out in the flow of the game, identifying their shooters and identifying them in transition.”
Georgia State hung close for the first 20 minutes. The Panthers withstood a late 9-0 run, which put them down by 14, but came back to cut the lead to 47-39 at halftime. JMU used a 13-1 spurt midway in the second half and upped its lead to 22 at 8:28.
“We’ll keep showing up,” Hayes said. “We’ll keep staying true to the right way to play the game.”
The Panthers were short on personnel again, sticking with the same six players for all but four minutes of the game. Zarique Nutter and Darnell Evans remained on the sick list and forward Clash Peters won’t be back from a shoulder injury for at least another week.
The Georgia State women dropped the opening game of the doubleheader, falling to Old Dominion 64-57. GSU (9-11, 3-6) was led by Mikyla Tolivert with 14 points and six rebounds and Patience Williams with 14 points. Old Dominion (14-7, 6-3) outrebounded the Panthers 48-28 and got 19 points from Simaru Fields.
About the Author
