^{­Clemson, S.C. – Georgia State's second trip to the National Invitation Tournament ended with a 78-66 loss at Clemson Tuesday night at Littlejohn Coliseum. All five Georgia State starters finished in double figures led by Sun Belt Player of the Year R.J. Hunter's 15 points.}

^{Making its fifth postseason appearance ever but its second in three seasons under head coach Ron Hunter, Georgia State finishes the season with a record of 25-9, the second-highest victory total in school history.}

^{K.J. McDaniels, the Atlantic Coast Conference Defensive Player of the Year, led by the Tigers with 30 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots, and Clemson (21-12) moves on to face the winner of Wednesday's Illinois-Boston University matchup.}

^{Georgia State uncharacteristically shot just 34.3-percent from the floor, but continued to do what it did well all year – make free throws (13 of 14) and not turn the ball over (5).}

^{“I am so unbelievably proud of this group,” head coach Ron Hunter said. “Just 48 hours after a heartbreaking loss, they came out tonight and left everything they had on the court. This has been an unbelievable team to coach. They all bought into our system and helped put Georgia State basketball back on the map.”}

^{Ryan Harrow and Devonta White scored 13 points each for GSU, Manny Atkins had 12, and Curtis Washington contributed 11 points, eight rebounds and three blocks.}

^{Georgia State led briefly in the second half, and the Panthers were within one with under 10 minutes to play before the Tigers pulled away.}

^{Georgia State took its first lead at 19-18 on pair of free throws by Devonta White with 6:21 left in the first half. The Panthers led 23-20 when Clemson scored 11 straight points to regain control, leading 31-20 with under three minutes to go. Atkins 3-pointer in the waning seconds pulled GSU within 35-32 at the intermission.}

^{In the second half, Hunter's steal and layup gave the Panthers their only lead of the second half at 40-39 with 16:27 to play, but the Tigers answered with buckets by Damarcus Harrison and Jaron Blossomgame.}

^{Clemson was able to pull away from there, outscoring the Panthers 43-34 in the second half.}

^{After a 3-6 start to the season, Georgia State won 22 of its final 25 games and won the Sun Belt Conference regular season title in just its first year in the league.}

^{R.J. Hunter knocked down two 3-pointers against the Tigers and finished the season with 100 made from beyond the arc, the first player in program history to accomplish the feat.}

^{Atkins also made a pair of 3-pointers in his final game to finish his career among the top 10 in program history with 129 and with a 3-pointer shooting percent of 42.4-percent, No. 2 all-time in GSU history.}

^{Damarcus Harrison finished with 17 points and six rebounds for Clemson, while Jordan Roper came off the bench and finished with 11 points.}

^{Georgia State will lose four seniors off this year's squad but return three starters for the 2014-15 season.}

Postgame Quotes

Georgia State Head Coach Ron Hunter

Overall thoughts:

 “First I want to say how proud I am of these guys sitting here, Devonta White and Manny Atkins. We all walked into this thing together about two and a half years ago. Manny was the first guy we brought in and D-White was here already, and we said we wanted to win championships and change the culture here. These guys helped me do that. I am forever indebted to them. This university is too, and I'm really proud. We lost to a very good basketball team tonight but we fought and played hard. They made a couple runs like I thought they would do. We showed that we can play with people and give a lot of credit to Clemson.”

On the technical four toward the end of the game:

“You'll have to talk to the referees to learn what that was about. I questioned a call because I thought it was goaltending so I slapped my hands to say that I thought it slapped against the boards. He thought that I was mocking him. I thought he pinned the ball against the backboard, which would be goaltending. They only made one free throw out of it but they were already in the bonus. I don't know if it rattled us and I don't know if it really got them going, but they made some free throws. One play here, one play there.

“I thought we got a little fatigued. I told our staff I thought we were getting a little fatigued. We just played the other night. I was using timeouts more to rest than to strategize. These guys played an overtime game the other so I was using timeouts to give them rest.”

On motivating his team:

“We're playing in the NIT, against Clemson, an ACC school, so I didn't have any trouble motivating them. We had two goals at the beginning of the year. One was to win the conference championship and we did. The second was to make postseason play and we did that, too. You shouldn't have to motivate to come into this facility. I was absolutely stunned to walk out on that court and see how many Georgia State people had come. My first game at Georgia State there weren't even that many people at Georgia State! I'm so proud of our university. To see our fans and our band and our cheerleaders, students who were on spring break to make the trip down? That was motivation enough.”

On the gameplan to limit K.J. McDaniels:

“We didn't have a lot of time heading into this. We didn't even practice before the game. Shootaround was the first chance we had to practice. So we really didn't have much time to gameplan. He's a really good player. I'd be shocked to see Clemson not in the finals. Clemson's a very good team and it's going to be hard to beat them, especially if they're playing here. Our job was to keep bodies around him if we could. He's a really good player who, what I love about him, is he doesn't force anything. If he couldn't get off a good shot he went to the glass. Our gameplan was just to keep doing what we were doing. We didn't really have a chance to prepare for him like we usually would.”