Nelson Phillips
Mandela Jones
69
Winner Georgia St. GSU 10-4,3-0 Sun Belt
60
Appalachian St. APP 8-6,2-1 Sun Belt
Winner
Georgia St. GSU
10-4,3-0 Sun Belt
69
Final
60
Appalachian St. APP
8-6,2-1 Sun Belt
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
Georgia St. GSU 40 29 69
Appalachian St. APP 23 37 60

Game Recap: Men's Basketball |

Panthers Open Road Trip With 69-60 Win at Appalachian State

BOONE, N.C.-In a battle of Sun Belt Conference first place teams, Georgia State earned a 69-60 win over Appalachian State on Thursday night at the Holmes Convocation Center.

Four Panthers finished in double figures for Georgia State (10-4, 3-0 Sun Belt) led by freshman Jalen Thomas who scored a career-high 14 points and pulled down six rebounds.

Appalachian State (8-6, 2-1 Sun Belt) had entered the night as part of an early season five-way tie for first place with the Panthers. The Mountaineers were led by Adrian Delph who finished with a double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds. All-Sun Belt Preseason Third Team member Isaac Johnson missed the game with an injury.

Junior Kane Williams just missed a double-double finishing with seven points and a career-high tying nine assists, while redshirt-sophomore Justin Roberts scored 13 points. Freshman Joe Jones III returned to the starting line-up and finished with 11 points while sophomore Nelson Phillips added eight points and seven rebounds.

Georgia State won its eighth-straight conference game dating back to last season and is now 81-34 since rejoining the conference in 2013-14.

"I told the guys after the game that I am proud of them for the win and I'm disappointed for them because I thought they had an opportunity to play their best game of the year," head coach Rob Lanier said. "We did everything we set out to do in the first half. I told them before the game I want us to get better when adversity hits and we didn't do that in the second half."

After missing its first five shots of the game, Georgia State started to heat up and after going a stretch of knocking down five of seven field goals led 16-6 with 11:45 to play in the first half as the Mountaineers turned it over nine times in the first eight minutes.

Trailing by 13, Appalachian State used a 6-0 run to cut Georgia State's lead to 19-12 with 9:10 to play but would not get any closer in the first half.

Holding a 31-23 lead, Georgia State finished the half on a 9-0 run to take a 40-23 lead into the locker room. The Mountaineers were held without a field goal for the final 2:43 of the half. The Panthers dominated points in the paint 24-10 while forcing App State into 13 turnovers.

Georgia State pushed the lead to 57-38 before the Mountaineers used an 8-0 run to cut the Panther lead to just 11 with 10:01 as Corey Allen fouled out with 11 points and three rebounds.

Following the run, the Mountaineers were held without a point for nearly four minutes as Georgia State continued to maintain a double-digit lead.

Appalachian State used a late 6-0 run to cut Georgia State's lead to 64-57 with 1:35 to play but could get no closer in the final 90 seconds.

Justin Forrest, the second-leading scorer in the Sun Belt Conference was held to just 10 points on 2-of-14 shooting and turned the ball over five times.
Appalachian State finished the game with 24 turnovers which led to 19 GSU points while shooting just 36.2 percent for the game, including just 4-of-18 from 3-point range.

Notes:
  • The Panthers improved to 3-3 in 'decade openers' dating back to the 1970's and have won each of their last two games to open a decade.
  • The Panthers have won five of the last six meetings with Appalachian State including three straight wins in Boone.
  • With a 3-pointer tonight, Georgia State has made at least one 3-pointer in 762 games dating back to Feb. 18, 1995.
  • Since the start of the 2013-14 season, the Panthers have won 144 games, the most of any NCAA Division 1 program in the state of Georgia.
Georgia State will continue a stretch of three road games in five days at Coastal Carolina on Saturday at 2 p.m. The game will air on ESPN+ along with the GSU Mobile App.
 
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