Georgia State wins Sun Belt, gets NCAA berth

Trip to tourney is Panthers’ fourth in school history.

The Georgia State Panthers are going dancing for the fourth time in school history. Georgia State defeated Texas-Arlington 74-61 to win the Sun Belt Conference tournament Sunday inNewOrle- ans, the Panthers’ second conference championship under coach Ron Hunter.

The Panthers ( 24- 10) earned the South Region’s 15-seed in the NCAA tournament. They’ll face No. 2 seed Cincinnati in the opening round in Nashville on Friday.

“We really worked hard for it,” Hunter said in an enthusiastic postgame interview with ESPN. “We’re proud of it. Atlanta, Georgia, we’re coming home dancing, baby.”

GSU entered the Sun Belt tournament as a No. 2 seed and beat Troy and Georgia Southern before winning the fifinale. The Panthers held a double-digit lead in each game. They faced little adversity in that run, with Georgia Southern’s late rally the only true scare. That came despite GSU losing four of its fifinal six regular-season games, including two against teams it faced in the tournament.

D’Marcus Simonds, one of the nation’s leading scorers, fifinished with 27 points, fifive rebounds and four assists in the championshipgame and was named the tournament’s most outstanding player. He completes the season averaging 20.9 points per game, 29th best in the country.

Devin Mitchell added 13 points and Malik Benlevi contributed 11. The Panthersmade eight of 17 3-point attempts, the area in which they’ve lived and died by all season.

It’s the Panthers’ fifirst trip to the tournament since 2015, when they made national waves by upsetting thirdseeded Baylor as a 14-seed. R.J. Hunter naileda 3-pointer with 2.6 seconds remaining to put the Panthers up 57-56. They lost to Xavier 75-67 to halt a potential Cinderella run, but Hunter’s shot — along with his father falling out of his chair — is often regarded as one of themore memorable moments in recent tournament history.

Georgia State first qualified for the NCAA tournament in 1991, when it lost to Arkansas. It alsowent in2001, beating Wisconsin before losing to Maryland.