Georgia St. downs Southern for SBC top seed

STATESBORO — Kane Williams scored 23 points, 15 in the second half, D’Marcus Simonds scored 20 points and Georgia State knocked off Georgia Southern 90-85 at Hanner Fieldhouse to win the Sun Belt regular-season title and a No. 1 seed in the conference tourney next week in New Orleans.

It marked the first time that Georgia State (22-9, 13-5 SBC) had beaten Georgia Southern (20-11, 12-6) in Statesboro since Dec. 21, 1996.

“It’s a hard loss because I know our guys really wanted it,” Eagles coach Mark Byington said. “I told the guys before today, that’s not the biggest game of the year. I told them that on Monday this week because the biggest game of this year is going to come down in New Orleans (at 8:30 p.m. ET Friday against an opponent to be determined).

“If we didn’t turn the ball over, we weren’t going to have bad offense. The major problem tonight was the turnovers on offense because that led to (Georgia State) getting baskets in transition.”

Texas State (23-8, 12-6) lost at UT-Arlington (16-15, 12-6) on Saturday afternoon with the game finishing just after Southern and State tipped off at a packed Hanner (3,897). The Bobcats' loss allowed the Eagles and Panthers affair to be the regular-season title game many had anticipated.

The two rivals didn’t disappoint, as the lead changed hands nine different times in the first half.

Never trailing again after a 39-38 deficit late in the first half, the Panthers held the lead for over 33 minutes while Georgia Southern had an advantage for under four minutes of game action.

Tookie Brown led the Eagles all evening, scoring 11 points before halftime in aggressive fashion. The senior scored 19 points with five rebounds and five assists in his final game at Hanner. Fellow senior Montae Glenn had a rough start but finished strong, scoring all 11 of his points after the break and grabbing 10 rebounds to secure a double-double.

Both players were honored in a senior night ceremony following the loss.

“I feel so bad we couldn’t win this one for Tookie and Montae,” Byington said. “But I also feel bad for our fans because I know they wanted it. We all wanted it. Hopefully, we can come back to Statesboro next Sunday and celebrate going to the NCAA Tournament with (the fans). I know they’ll be there for us.”

Georgia State’s Jeff Thomas racked up four personal fouls in the game’s first 18 minutes, but he and the conference’s preseason player of the year, Simonds, each scored 10 to pace the Panthers in the first.

Thomas didn’t score after the break, fouling out with eight minutes left.

Panthers senior and Savannah native Malik Benlevi (Jenkins High) scored seven points in the opening half while grabbing three rebounds and blocking two shots. He recorded his second double-double of the season and seventh for his career, finishing with 18 points and a season-high 10 boards.

Isaiah Crawley played well for the Eagles. The junior forward matched Brown’s 19 points and added 10 rebounds with two blocks to secure his fifth career double-double.

Trailing 42-39 at the break, GS was in familiar yet undesirable territory. The Panthers entered Saturday ranked second nationally with a 19-0 mark when leading at the half.

The Eagles were no strangers to trailing at halftime. GS had won eight games this season in which it was losing following the opening half. On Saturday, Byington’s bunch went cold, shooting 18 percent (2 of 11) from beyond the arc in the second half and finishing at a 22 percent (4 of 18) clip.

Georgia Southern shot 26 percent (5 of 19) from 3-point range in a Feb. 2 loss (81-72) at State.

“They weren’t all bad shots,” Byington said of the struggles from long range Saturday. “We didn’t take bad ones, I thought some of them we thought we might have gotten fouled on but other ones just didn’t fall.

“I think we got caught up in some things that led to us having trouble really locking in and focusing on what we had to do. But we’ll be able to fix them before next week. We just weren’t ourselves tonight.”

GEORGIA ST. (22-9, 13-5 SBC)

Thomas 3-4 2-2 10, Benlevi 7-10 2-6 18, Simonds 6-17 6-8 20, Wilson 5-9 1-2 11, Williams 7-11 8-11 23, Tyson 0-0 0-0 0, Mitchell 2-8 0-0 6, Phillips 1-4 0-0 2. Totals 31-63 19-29 90.

GA SOUTHERN (20-11, 12-6 SBC)

Glenn 5-10 1-1 11, Crawley 7-16 5-7 19, Wishart 1-6 4-5 7, Brown 6-14 7-9 19, Jackson 5-11 0-0 12, Carter 4-5 1-1 9, Dawkins 0-0 0-0 0, Jones 1-3 0-1 3, McCadden 2-4 1-2 5. Totals 31-69 19-26 85.

Halftime—Georgia St. 42-39. 3-Point Goals--Georgia St. 9-24 (Thomas 2-3, Benlevi 2-4, Mitchell 2-7, Simonds 2-7, Williams 1-2, Wilson 0-1), Georgia Southern 4-18 (Jackson 2-6, Jones 1-3, Wishart 1-5, Brown 0-1, McCadden 0-1, Crawley 0-2). Fouled Out—Jones, Thomas. Rebounds—Georgia St. 36 (Wilson 11), Georgia Southern 41 (Glenn, Crawley 10). Assists—Georgia St. 12 (Wilson 6), Georgia Southern 9 (Brown 5). Total Fouls—Georgia St. 22, Georgia Southern 23. A—3,897 (3,897).