One of the lessons that the Georgia State basketball team had hammered into its head over the past two days was the importance of poise.
On Thursday, the Panthers did not react well after getting smacked in the mouth by James Madison. On Saturday, under similar circumstances, they kept their composure, overcame a 13-point first-half deficit and turned away a late charge to beat South Alabama 68-58 at the GSU Convocation Center.
“I’ve said it 1,000 times, and you’re going to hear me say it 1,000 more times, but we hold our guys to a standard of progress,” GSU coach Jonas Hayes said. “And what you saw from one game to the next is progress. I don’t mind a team playing with emotion, but it’s a different game when you are emotional. We were able to keep our emotionalism – that’s a new word – in check enough to settle down and play like we want.”
Georgia State got off to another horrible start from the field and trailed by 13 with 4:30 remaining in the first half. But the Panthers found the right combination and began to close the margin. Three consecutive baskets by Branden Tucker and a couple of aggressive driving baskets by Jamaine Mann enabled GSU to finish the half on a 12-0 run and close the margin to 30-29 at halftime.
“It’s how you handle those situations that makes the difference,” Hayes said. “I thought we chose to make a decision that allowed us to be successful today.”
The Panthers then scored the first six points of the second half on a pair of 3-point shots by Ja’Heim Hudson that seemed to course-correct the game. The first gave GSU the lead that it never relinquished.
Hudson tried deflect the credit. “I just had to test the waters a little bit,” he said.
But teammate Dwon Odom nodded his head to affirm the importance of the two baskets. “We went on a roll after that,” Odom said.
Georgia State led by as many as 12, only to have South Alabama cut the lead to three points for the third time with 2:49 remaining. Following a timeout, the Panthers scored on their next three possessions before South Alabama could score again, and the margin was up to nine points.
“One thing that helped was getting stops,” Odom said. “As long as we got stops, we were very positive about winning the game. Great second half. We were able to stay together, and we just kept running the score up and defending. That’s what we’re about.”
Georgia State (8-6, 1-1 Sun Belt) got 18 points from Odom, 18 points and 11 rebounds from Hudson, 13 points from Mann and 10 points from Tucker. Hudson had his third double-double of the season.
South Alabama (6-8, 0-2) was led by Greg Parham with 15 points and Owen White with 14. Seven-footer Kevin Samuel, the leading active NCAA rebounder, had 11 on Saturday and passed Paul Milsap of Louisiana Tech (a former Hawks star) and Lawrence Roberts of Mississippi State to enter the top 50 with 1,178.
South Alabama was without leading scorer Isaiah Moore (18.1 points per game), who took a hard fall in Thursday’s loss to Georgia Southern and hurt his tailbone.
“One thing we did today was stay together,” Odom said. “We were able to regroup. We stayed focused and prepared like we were supposed to. The coaches got us prepared, and we were able to get the win.”
Georgia State has two-game trip next week, with conference games at Louisiana-Monroe on Thursday and Louisiana-Lafayette on Saturday.
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