The Georgia State basketball team has made some dramatic upward moves over the past three weeks. Now the Panthers will learn whether their momentum can carry over down the stretch and into the Sun Belt Conference tournament.
GSU has won four in a row — its longest win streak since Jonas Hayes became head coach three years ago. In league play the Panthers are 7-7, good for seventh place in the 14-team conference, and 12-15 overall, but face a daunting task by closing the season with four consecutive road games.
Georgia State makes a swing through Virginia this week with games against James Madison (17-10, 10-4) on Thursday and Old Dominion (11-16, 7-7) on Saturday. Games can be seen on ESPN-Plus and heard locally on WGTJ-FM 97.5 and the GSU sports app. Georgia State lost to James Madison 86-79 on Jan. 25 and beat Old Dominion 97-75 a week ago.
Coach Jonas Hayes is focused on having the team just put one foot ahead of the other.
“We’ve got grown men in our locker room,” Hayes said. “We’re not looking at the next two weeks. We’re looking at the next step. That’s all. Keep flipping the coin. The odds are going to change at some point in time. You’ve got to stay true to our process, and nobody said it was going to be easy, but if you stick to the process, it will most definitely be worth it.”
The guy who has done much of the heavy lifting is Cesare Edwards, the 6-10 senior transfer from Missouri State. In two games last week, Edwards scored a career-high 29 points, making 12 of 13 field-goal tries, with 11 rebounds and four blocks against Old Dominion, and he had 24 points, nine rebounds and three blocks in the win over Appalachian State.
As a result, Edwards was named Sun Belt Player of the Week, the first GSU player to garner the award since Corey Allen in November 2021.
Edwards has scored in double figures in 22 of 27 games and is averaging 16.3 points, third in the conference. Edwards, who does most of his work in the paint and with short jumpers, is second in the league in field-goal percentage (52.0).
“I would just say it’s comfortability,” Edwards said. “At this point we’re seeing teams twice, so we already have a comfortability with what they’re good at, their strengths and weaknesses. It goes into my teammate’s hands, into believing in me and to give me the ball, trusting that I have the best decision and know what to do with the ball at the time.”
Toneari Lane (14.7 points) ranks 10th in the conference in scoring, and Nick McMullen is No. 2 in the Sun Belt with 9.6 rebounds.
“We’ve got confidence in our work that we put in, the hours that we put in,” Lane said. “We knew the tables were going to turn at some point, so we just stayed confident and stayed ready.”
GSU finally has its lineup intact again. Zarique Nutter has settled into his role coming off the bench and has scored in double figures in four of the past five games. Clash Peters, the energetic 6-foot-8 freshman, returned from a shoulder injury and has provided crucial backup minutes.
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