ATLANTA?Georgia State suffered its third-straight two-point loss, again in heart-breaking fashion as William and Mary rallied from 16 points down for a 60-58 victory Saturday afternoon at the Georgia State Sports Arena.
Peter Stein made the go-ahead basket for the Tribe (7-8, 3-2 CAA) with 1:17 left, and State's Leonard Mendez missed a contested jumper that would have tied the game with 52 seconds to play. Ousman Krubally's steal with 16 seconds gave the Panthers (4-11, 1-4 CAA) one last chance, but they failed to get off a good shot.
“We've got to get past competing and keeping it close and we've got to get to winning, and that's going to come by putting ourselves in position and making plays that need to be made,” said Georgia State head coach Rod Barnes, whose squad dropped two-point games on the road at Northeastern (64-62) last Saturday and VCU (49-47) Thursday. In all three contests, the Panthers had a shot to tie or win in the final seconds.
“I'm very disappointed because I thought being at home we had an opportunity to stop this two-point fiasco we have been going through.”
Mendez and Trae Goldston led the Panthers with 15 points. Goldston nailed back-to-back treys to give Georgia State a 16-point lead at 48-32 with 15 minutes left in the second half. William and Mary then went on a 15-4 run to cut the lead to five at 52-47 with eight minutes to go when Mendez appeared to stop the bleeding with a steal and dunk. Goldston added a jumper, and State led 56-47 with 6:12 to play, but the Tribe reeled off nine straight points, tying the game at 56-all on Laimis Kisielius' layup with 2:52 left.
State answered with a layup by Rashad Chase, but Nathan Mann again tied the game at 58-all with a jumper with 2:06 to play. Then D.J. Jones had a shot blocked in the lane to set up Stein's go-ahead basket.
Three William and Mary players scored in double figures as Mann had 11 and Kisielius and David Schneider added 10 each. The Tribe got back in the game by shooting 59 percent in the second half.
“I just thought the second half today we didn't have the same intensity as we did in the first half,” said Barnes. “It could have been [that we ran out of gas]. As bad as I hate to admit it, it could have been the case because a majority of the guys we played got a lot of minutes and it was a quick turnaround for us.
“The only way that you're going to beat a team like theirs is by getting up and pressuring because they have a lot of shooters and they do a great job moving the basketball. Maybe we can say that we ran out of gas, but we still didn't finish the game and you've got a big enough lead that if you stay in focus you probably should have won the game.”
“I went into the game telling them today, Let' see if we can play the best 40 minutes we can possibly play and we probably played 25.”
Krubally, a sophomore walk-on from Atlanta, made his first start for the Panthers and contributed four points, seven rebounds, two assists and two steals. Jones equaled his season-high with nine points.
“We've got to continue to work,” said Barnes. “I'm encouraged on one side and I'm discouraged one the other side. I'm encouraged that for three games we've been able to compete. But I'm discouraged that we haven't figured out how to win it.”
