The Georgia State basketball team showed some of the poise it has been lacking down the stretch against Marshall on Thursday and came away with its first road victory and an end to its four-game losing streak.
The Panthers, who lost to Marshall 92-79 a week ago, went into Huntington, W. Va., built a 20-point lead and hung on for an 85-81 victory.
“It’s just one step though,” GSU coach Jarvis Hayes said. “You don’t want to get full of yourself because we’ve got to regroup, one day to prep and get on the road and be able to do it again on Saturday. So, we’re going to look at this, we’re going to break down the film, we’re going to talk about it, we’re going to learn from it.”
And take a deep breath.
“I’m excited for our guys and the effort and urgency and concentration they had,” Hayes said. “And they had a great attitude.”
Georgia State (8-14, 4-6 Sun Belt) was led by Cesare Edwards with 27 points, two short of his career high. He hit 11 of 17 from the floor and added five rebounds and four assists.
The Panthers had four other players score in double figures: Toneari Lane with 14, Nick McMullen with 14 points and eight rebounds, Jelani Hamilton with 13 points and six assists, and Malachi Brown with 10 points.
Marshall (13-10, 6-4) was one of the Sun Belt’s hottest team, having won three straight. Dezayne Mingo scored 23 points and 6-foot-8 forward Obinna Anochili-Killen scored 20, 18 in the second half. In last week’s game Anochili-Killen had 23 points, 10 rebounds and eight blocks, but he was limited to three rebounds and two blocks in the rematch.
The Panthers shot 71.7% in the first half and took a 51-37 lead at the half. GSU expanded the lead to 20 and was ahead 68-48 with 13:28 remaining. That’s when Marshall got back in the game with a 9-0 run, which fed into a 16-5 run and trimmed the margin to single-digits for the first time since 5:33 in the first half.
The Herd got as close as three with 27 seconds left, but Brown hit a pair of free throws. Anochili-Killen followed with a 3-pointer with 16 seconds remaining to cut the lead to 83-81, but Lane put the game away with two free throws with six seconds left. Marshall tried unsuccessfully to draw a foul on a 3-point shot at the buzzer.
“I thought our guys had a great mentality,” Hayes said. “We turned the ball over, especially in the second half a few times, but we found enough intestinal fortitude or enough grit and poise and maturity to get out of here with a win. It was a great team effort.”
The Panthers wound up shooting 61.8% (34-for-55) for the game and 9-for-18 on 3-pointers – both high marks against a Sun Belt opponent. Georgia State outscored the Thundering Herd 40-22 in the paint.
Georgia State plays at Appalachian State (12-9, 6-4) on Saturday at 1 p.m.
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