ATLANTA, Ga. - Georgia State pulled away in the second half and then held off a late Towson rally to preserve a 73-65 Colonial Athletic Association win over the Tigers Saturday evening on the winners' floor.
The loss was the third in a row for the Tigers, dropping them to 4-10 overall and 0-4 in the league. The Panthers improved to 8-6 and 3-1 in the conference.
Towson's game plan included stopping the nation's leading three-point shooter, senior guard Dante Curry (49%). That part of the strategy worked as the Tigers limited the sharp shooting Panther to a 4 for 13 night from beyond the arc. He finished with a team high 12 points.
But the rest of the Georgia State guys went 7 of 12 and their treys seemed to come at the most inopportune of times for the Tigers. When the Tigers would make a move to go ahead or close the gap, another Panther would drop a three-pointer.
Secondly, the Tigers' hot hand at the free throw line suddenly went cold. Towson entered the game as the league's top free throw shooting team, hitting 74 per cent of the freebies. But they missed seven of their 13 attempts including six in a row. If those had been makes the Tigers could have taken a nice lead into halftime.
Georgia State held a slim lead throughout most of the first half. What helped preserve the edge was poor free throw shooting by the Tigers who missed six in the final three minutes, and the occasional three-pointer that the Panthers would bury. Instead of a possible 38-32 lead the Tigers wound up trailing 33-32 at the break.
The Panthers had the lead until Danny Quinn's putback knotted the score at 20-20. At the 5:58 mark Towson finally broke to the front on Isaiah Philmore's three-pointer, 27-25. After a Panther triple by Javente Maynor, Braxton Dupree gave the Tigers their last lead, 29-28, on two free throws. Georgia State scored its last point of the period at the 3:30 mark but carried the lead into halftime after the Tigers missed the six free throws in the closing minutes.
The wheels came off Towson's cart in the second half, forcing the Tigers to play catch up. Philmore tied the game at 36-36. The Panthers then went on a wild scoring spree that resulted in a 14-2 run and the first double digit lead of the contest. The Panthers' spurt finally topped out at 17 points, 55-38, with 10:30 left before the Tigers began to slowly chip away at the lead.
Over the last 10 minutes the Tigers climbed the slippery slope back, eventually trimming GSU's lead to six, 71-65, with 29 seconds left. Two late GSU free throws accounted for the final score.
The Tigers were forced to play a stretch of the second half without Josh Brown while the Georgia State doctor stitched his split lip from a whack the senior guard took late in the first period. Brown, who had been averaging nearly 17 points per game in Towson's last three outings, finished with 14 points but his absence seemed to disrupt the Tigers' flow.
"We played a terrific first half but we have to play an almost perfect game to be where we want to be," said Tiger coach Pat Kennedy. "We couldn't get Josh up in time to start the second half and that's when we started to turn the ball over."
After a fairly mistake free first half that yielded just four turnovers, the Tigers committed nine boots in the final 20 minutes.
Dupree paced Towson with a game high 21 points and a game high nine rebounds, just missing his sixth double-double of the season. Philmore had a career night from outside, going 3 for 3 from beyond the arc to finish with 13 points. RaShawn Polk, who has been hobbled with a toe injury for the past three games, played 38 minutes, contributing 12 points.
The Tigers are back on the court again this Wednesday when they host Hofstra in a CAA rematch at 7:00 p.m. The Pride won the first meeting back in early December 74-62.
