Saturday's game, which can be seen live on Cox Sports, tips off at 2:00pm in the Ryan Center.
School: Georgia State University
Location: Atlanta, GA
Founded: 1913
Enrollment: 32,000+
Nickname: Panthers
Colors: Blue and White
Georgia State University is an urban university in downtown Atlanta. Founded in 1913, it is one of four research universities in the University System of Georgia.
Georgia State currently plays in the Colonial Athletic Association. However, the 2012-2013 season will be Georgia State’s final season in the Colonial Athletic Association. As of 1-July-2013, the Panthers will join the Sun Belt Conference. Due to CAA rules regarding conference switching, the Panthers (along with Old Dominion, which is moving to Conference USA) will not be eligible for the CAA Tournament in March. Paired with VCU's immediate departure for the Atlantic 10 and the postseason ineligibility of Towson and UNC-Wilmington due to low APR scores, that means the 2013 CAA Tournament will feature just seven teams.
The good news, then, for Georgia State is that they are eligible for all postseason invitational tournaments, such as the NCAA and NIT. The bad news is that Georgia State is ineligible to participate for the 2012-13 season's CAA championship and cannot therefore get the CAA's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
Now in his second year as head coach of men's basketball at Georgia State is Ron Hunter, 48.
Prior to Georgia State, Coach Ron Hunter was in Indianapolis for 17 seasons as head coach at UIPUI, where Hunter guided the UIPUI program through its transition from the NAIA and Division II level into NCAA Division I and the Summit League.
Back in the day, Ron Hunter was a standout player on the strong Miami (Ohio) teams of the mid-1980s, along with high school and college teammate Ron Harper, who went on to a long NBA career. The Redhawks were 81-30 during Hunter's four-year career and earned three consecutive NCAA Tournament berths while winning two MAC championships. Hunter earned his bachelor's degree in education at Miami in 1986 and added a master's in 1987.
Last year for the 2011-12 season, with Coach Ron Hunter in his first year as head coach of the Panthers, Georgia State won 22 games, the second most in school history, advancing to the second round of the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament, the Panthers fourth-ever postseason appearance. To put things in perspective: last season's 22-12 record under first-year head coach Ron Hunter was the Panthers first season with a record over .500 since the 2003-04 season.
This year, Georgia State men's basketball was picked to finish eighth in the preseason Colonial Athletic Association poll. The Panthers officially opened their 2012-2013 season on Nov. 9 at Duke. The Panthers thus far find themselves with a somewhat mediocre 5-6 record (and one of those wins was against Southern Polytechnic State of the NAIA):
Code: Select all
Fri, Nov 09 at Duke 55 - 74 (L)
Tue, Nov 13 at BYU 62 - 80 (L)
Mon, Nov 19 vs Monmouth 62 - 49 (W)
Tue, Nov 20 vs Tennessee State 59 - 57 (W)
Wed, Nov 21 vs South Alabama 75 - 73 (W)
Mon, Nov 26 vs East Carolina 53 - 62 (L)
Fri, Nov 30 vs Louisiana Tech 68 - 86 (L)
Sun, Dec 02 at Liberty 67 - 66 (W)
Sat, Dec 08 vs Southern Poly 86 - 58 (W) non-Div-1
Sat, Dec 15 at Troy 57 - 56 (L)
Tue, Dec 18 vs Southern Miss 67 - 69 (L)This year's GSU roster (and likely starters against URI) is as follows:
- Devonta White (5-10 170) Point guard and team leader. The junior from Alpharetta, Georgia, is the lone returning starter from last season's Georgia State team that finished sixth in the CAA. Before the start of this season, Devonte White earned Preseason All-CAA Second Team honors, and since the first game he has been the backbone of the GSU team. White leads the Panthers in minutes (35mpg), points (15 ppg), assists (3 apg), and steals (2.4 spg).
- David Travers (6-0 170) Freshman point guard from Carlsbad, California. Good ball handler and quick. Understudy for Devonta White, who plays almost all the time every game.
- Ryann Green (6-1 171) Sophomore guard from College Park, Ga. Now in his second year as a walk-on, he is nevertheless a tough cookie who may see playing time against Rhody.
- Tyler Gamble (6-2 195) Sophomore guard from Commerce, Ga. Talented walk-on who sees occasional action. Scored his first ever college basket in the game last year against Rhode Island.
- Kevin Shaw (6-2 170) Sophomore guard from Louisville, Kentucky. Two guard who can play the point.
- Cameron Solomon (6-3 170) Redshirt Sophomore guard from Hampton, Ga. (Brevard CC). Against NAIA Southern Poly, he made his first career start as a Panther, but in general this season he is one of the Panthers players off the bench. He is averaging 6.3 points per game, fifth best on the GSU team, despite playing just 13.6 minutes per contest. The issue limiting his playing time is that, while Solomon is a very exciting player on the offensive side of the ball, he is too much of a liability defensively at this point in his career to get starter-like minutes.
- Rashad Richardson (6-4 179) Junior guard from Charleston, South Carolina. In the game against Liberty, he drained an incredibly deep three-point shot to lift Georgia State to a miraculous victory
- R.J. Hunter (6-5 175) Freshman guard and Coach's son. Two-time CAA Rookie of the Week, and second on the team for scoring and for steals. R.J. Hunter began his collegiate career in impressive fashion, collecting a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds in the Panthers loss to Duke. In the heart breaking loss to Southern Mississippi on Tuesday night at home where GSU led for most of the game, he was game high scorer with 24 points, draining 6 treys. He is currently averaging 14 points and 6 rebounds per game.
- Markus Crider (6-6 205) Freshman forward from Dayton, Ohio. Prepped at Bridgton Academy. Combo player who is skilled enough to play any position from point guard to power forward. Though just a freshman, he is the Sixth Man, in terms of minutes played this year. He started the BYU game and the Louisiana Tech game.
- Justin Green (6-6 205) Sophomore forward from Jonesboro, Ga. Walk-on who gets occasional garbage time.
- Manny Atkins (6-7 205) Redshirt Junior forward from Tucker, Georgia (he sat out last season as a transfer to GSU from Virginia Tech). Atkins almost immediately found his groove this season: in the Panthers' second game of the season, Atkins at BYU scored 21 points on 9-of-18 shooting, hitting three treys, while grabbing a career-high eight rebounds, and added three steals and an assist in 36 minutes of action. Just before Thanksgiving, he topped that performance with a career-high 26 points on 8-of-11 shooting against South Alabama, hitting 5-of-6 from three-point range to go along with seven rebounds and five assists. So far this season, he leads the team in rebounding (6.5 rpg) and is currently averaging 13 ppg, hitting 46 percent from beyond the arc, and leads the CAA in three-point field goal percentage.
- T.J. Shipes (6-7 225) Freshman forward from Buford, Ga. Power forward who can run the floor. Strong and physical, he is still just a freshman who makes freshman mistakes.
- Denny Burguillos (6-7 230) Junior forward from Venezuela; JUCO transfer from Casper College in Wyoming. Twenty-three year old backup, who sometimes starts. Can face up as a 4, or post up as a 5.
- LaRon Smith (6-8 190) Freshman forward from Palm Bay, Florida, who picked Georgia State over Duquesne. When he was being recruited, the word was that with his height he could rebound, and with his 7-3 wing span he had the ability to alter shots. However, this year in Division I, his only playing time so far has been 3 minutes in the lopsided victory over Southern Poly of the NAIA. By the way, he has two brothers, named LeRon and LoRon.
- Curtis Washington (6-9 230) Redshirt Sophomore forward from Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Sitting out this year as a transfer from University of Southern California.
- James Vincent (6-10 260) Center from Columbus, Georgia, is the lone senior on the team. Nicknamed “Oak”, Vincent is not the most athletic big man and is more of a shot blocker than a rebounder. He has collected 26 blocks so far this season. In the home opener against Monmouth on 19-Nov-2012, Vincent tied the GSU school record with nine blocked shots. Although not known for his scoring, he had in the season opener against Duke eight points on 4-of-5 shooting with five rebounds. More recently, Vincent had 10 points and nine boards in the one-point loss to Troy last week. Sometimes Coach Hunter starts 6-7 Denny Burguillos as the center, but 6-10 James Vincent is more likely to start against Rhody's Jonathan Hare. Neither of the GSU centers is a dominant scorer, but both can score with their back to the basket.
The Panthers have struggled at times this season, due primarily to their youth and inexperience. In addition to struggling with having nine brand new players, Georgia State’s upperclassmen have not been carrying their load as well as perhaps Coach Hunter had expected them to. Big men James Vincent and Denny Burguillos, in particular, have not been getting strong marks for effort. Many of GSU's games have been characterized by poor front court play.
Coach Ron Hunter always has his back court playing well defensively. However, on offense, the Panthers can be a bit sloppy. On one hand, they play fast to the point of being out of control, and have been known to commit 20+ turnovers in a game. On the other hand, given their up-beat tempo, they shoot adequately well from the field.
Look -- Georgia State may be a low mid-major but their up-tempo style is still likely this weekend to represent a challenge for the on-again off-again Rhode Island Rams. The concern for Saturday's mid-afternoon game is not whether the Rams roster has enough defensive intensity to slow a young and inexperienced Georgia State team; the concern is Rhody firepower and whether the kids from Kingston can collectively come up with the scoring punch to put away the Panthers.
GO RHODY!
