What You Need to Know:
* Five Panthers scored in double figures as Georgia State earned a 94-79 win over Alabama A&M on Wednesday night.
* On the day he graduated college, senior Willie Clayton just missed a double-double with 12 points and nine rebounds.
* Senior Jeremy Hollowell led the Panthers with 20 points and seven rebounds as Georgia State won for the six-straight time at home dating back to last year.
ATLANTA-With five players in double-figures, Georgia State cruised to a 94-79 win over Alabama A&M on Wednesday night at the GSU Sports Arena. On the day he graduated, senior Willie Clayton just missed a double-double with 12 points and nine rebounds.
Senior Jeremy Hollowell led the Panthers with 20 points and seven rebounds, while D'Marcus Simonds (18), Malik Benlevi (17) and Devin Mitchell (10) also scored in double figures.
Benlevi set a career-high in points for the second-straight game, going 6-of-7 from the floor. Simonds just missed a double-double adding eight rebounds and five assists.
Georgia State (6-3) won for the sixth-straight time at home dating back to last year and improved to 41-4 in the GSU Sports Arena since the start of the 2013-14 season.
Alabama A&M dropped to 0-9 to start the season despite a double-double of 30 points and 10 rebounds from Quinterian McConico, while Rakiya Battle finished with a school-record 15 assists.
“I'm just glad to get that game over,” head coach Ron Hunter said. “This is a tough time of year for us with final exams going on and not practicing when we normal would. I thought offensively we did a nice job tonight, but we pride ourselves on our defense and it wasn't good. Tip your cap to Alabama A&M as they played hard and gave us everything they had.”
Georgia State opened the game on an 11-0 run before the Bulldogs knocked down their first bucket with 16:04 to play in the half.
The Panthers pushed the lead to 20-7 before Alabama A&M responded with a 7-0 run to cut the deficit to 20-14 with 9:22 to play.
Late in the first half, Georgia State made seven-straight baskets as Panthers built an eight point lead and then went into the locker room leading 43-34.
Benlevi led the Panthers with 13 points in the opening half, while Hollowell added 10.
Using some full court press, Georgia State made the nine point lead to an 18 point advantage in just the first 4:34 of the second half, outscoring the Bulldogs 15-6 during that stretch.
The Panthers led by as many as 22 with 14:39 to go before the Bulldogs started to chip away at the lead. Using a 7-0 run, Alabama A&M cut the deficit to just 10, 89-79, with 1:24 to play, but was never able to get it to single digits.
Georgia State shots 65.4 percent in the second half and finished the game making 54.7 percent from the floor. The Panthers knocked down 8-of-19 from 3-point range and forced 13 turnovers which led to 20 points.
Junior Isaiah Williams finished with six points and a team-high six assists, while Jordan Session added seven points in just 12 minutes off the bench.
Christopher Thomas just missed a double-double for Alabama A&M, finishing with 17 points and nine rebounds.
Georgia State will open a two-game Conference USA road trip at former CAA-foe Old Dominion on Sunday at 2 p.m. in Norfolk, Va. After two days back in Atlanta, the Panthers will head to Murfreesboro, Tenn., to face Middle Tennessee on Wednesday.
