What you need to know:
* Sun Belt Player of the Year R.J. Hunter led the Panthers with 32 points on Saturday, his second-straight 30-plus point performance.
* Hunter set a Sun Belt tournament record with eight steals, which tied the GSU record last set in 2000.
* With the 83-79 win, Georgia State advances to its second-straight Sun Belt championship game. The Panthers will face either UL Monroe or Georgia Southern live on ESPN2 on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.
NEW ORLEANS-Led by 32 points from Sun Belt Player of the Year R.J. Hunter, Georgia State earned an 83-79 win over UL Lafayette in the first of two semifinal games at the Sun Belt tournament at Lakefront Arena on Saturday afternoon. The Panthers will advance to the championship game for the second year in a row on Sunday afternoon to play the winner of UL Monroe and Georgia Southern at 1 p.m. ET.
With leading scorer Ryan Harrow playing limited minutes due to a hamstring injury, Hunter went 11-of-22 from the floor and 7-of-8 from the free throw line. He added eight steals which established a new Sun Belt tournament record and tied the Georgia State school record which last occurred in 2000.
Hunter also surpassed Thomas Terrell's single-season school-record of 635 points (2001-02) and now has scored 643 points this season.
Junior Markus Crider just missed his fourth double-double of the season with 15 points and nine rebounds, while freshman Isaiah Dennis came off the bench to score a career-high 10 points, tying a career-high with 18 minutes played.
Georgia State (23-9) won its fourth-straight and eighth of its last nine games. The Panthers are 45-12 in their last 57 games dating back to last season and improved to 7-2 in conference tournaments as the No. 1 seed. The 23 wins are the third-most in school history.
Despite four players in double figures, UL Lafayette (20-13) saw its seven-game winning streak snapped. Devonta Walker came off the bench to lead the Ragin' Cajuns with 17 points and nine rebounds. The Panthers held All-Sun Belt First-Team member Shawn Long to 10 points and eight rebounds.
“I thought our guys came out really aggressive in the first half and we were able to establish our game,” head coach Ron Hunter said. “We let down a little bit in the second half, but we still able to keep a good lead until the very end.
“I am proud of the guys, but we did not come here to win one game. We came to play 80 minutes of Georgia State basketball and now we will prepare to win ourselves a championship on Sunday.”
Trailing 10-6 just over five minutes into the game, the Panthers responded with a 13-0 run to take a 19-10 lead with 10:52 to play.
The Ragin' Cajuns came right back with a 7-0 run to cut the Panthers lead to 25-21 with 6:36 to play, before Georgia State responded with six-straight points to take a 10-point lead with just under four minutes to play in the first half.
Georgia State went into the locker room leading 44-27, forcing 13 ULL turnovers which led to 22 GSU points.
The Panthers continued to push the pace in the second half, leading by as many as 24 with 15:52 to play. Georgia State still led by 13, 81-68, with 32 seconds to play after a free throw by Hunter, before ULL finished the game on an 11-3 run that included two 3-pointers in the final 10 seconds.
Seniors Ryann Green and Curtis Washington each scored eight points in the win, while redshirt-junior Kevin Ware, in his first season with the Panthers, added nine points and six assists.
Georgia State finished the game with a season-high 17 steals, tied for the sixth-most in program history. The Panthers turned 21 UL Lafayette turnovers into 29 points.
The Panthers finished 26-of-32 from the line. Hunter only missed his last free throw attempt, ending his streak of 23-straight, tied for the fifth-longest stretch in program history. His 32 points scored are the second-most for a Panther in conference-tournament history, only behind the 37 scored by Harrow in last season's Sun Belt tournament championship game.
The Sun Belt championship game can been seen live on ESPN2 at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday.
