Sun Belt Championship First Round:
GEORGIA STATE (10-15, 4-9 SBC) vs. #7 GEORGIA SOUTHERN (17-9, 8-6 SBC)
Wednesday, March 2 • 8:30 p.m. ET • Pensacola (Fla.) Bay Center

COVERAGE: ESPN+

THE TIPOFF
• After ending the regular season with a victory over ULM, Georgia State (10-15, 4-9 Sun Belt) is the No. 10 seed in the Sun Belt Conference Championship and will face No. 7 Georgia Southern (17-9, 8-6 Sun Belt) Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. ET at the Pensacola (Fla.) Bay Center.

• Georgia State is looking for its first win in the Sun Belt Conference Championship. The Panthers first played in the conference tournament in 2014 but are winless in six appearances (0-6). Last season, Georgia State was the No. 2 seed from the East but fell to West No. 3 Little Rock 75-68.

• In all conference tournament games, Georgia State is 28-35. From 1998-2005 in the TAAC/Atlantic Sun Conference, the Panthers played in the conference title game six times in eight years, highlighted by three straight conference tournament championships from 2001-03. 

• Georgia State and Georgia Southern split their regular-season meetings. The Panthers won 58-56 in Atlanta on Deasia Merrill's last-second shot, but the Eagles answered with a 71-61 win in Statesboro.

• Ashley Foster leads GSU in scoring (11.0 ppg), assists (43) and steals (33-tied for lead) and is second in rebounding (3.8 rpg). She has reached double-figure scoring 14 times this season, including a career-high 19 points at Florida to open the season. 

• The Panthers ended the regular season with a 76-65 victory at ULM. Deasia Merrill scored a career-high 16 points on 6-for-8 shooting from the field and also had six rebounds and two steals. Tehya Lyons had a season-high 15 points, and Ashley Foster added 11 points, four assists, three rebounds and three steals.

• Deasia Merrill averaged 13.5 points and 6.0 rebounds for the last two games and reached double-figure scoring in the three of the last five contests.

• Georgia State enters the tourney after winning two of its last three games, including a 60-57 overtime win at South Alabama on Feb. 19 in which freshmen led the Panthers in the extra session. With GSU trailing 57-54 and less than a minute to play, Alyssa Phillip grabbed an offensive rebound and put it back with 45 seconds left. Mikyla Tolivert, who had 13 points and six rebounds in the game, made a driving layup with six seconds left to to put the Panthers up 58-57. Then Nyla Jean drew a foul and sank two free throws with four seconds left to seal the 60-57 victory.  

• That was the second straight overtime win over South Alabama for the Panthers, who won 72-66 in Atlanta on Jan. 27. GSU led most of the game before the Jaguars forced overtime with a 3-pointer with just one second left in regulation. But the Panthers quickly regained control in the extra period as Hannah Sadler (8 points), Alex Gitchenko (5 points) and Tehya Lyons (4 points) combined to outscore the Jags 17-11. Ashley Foster had 18 points and a career-high nine rebounds, while Sadler was 6-for-7 from the field and scored eight of her 12 points in the overtime.

• After playing seven out of eight games at home from Jan. 13-Feb. 12, Georgia State played its final four regular-season games on the road, winning two of them.

• Moriah Taylor has come off the bench to hit 16 of her last 26 3-pointers. For the season she is 18-for-37 (48.6 percent).

• Kamryn Dziak leads the team with 37 3-pointers this season. The junior from Amherst, Ohio, hit her 100th career 3-pointer at South Alabama, good for 10th place in GSU history. 

• Alex Gitchenko, the freshman from Israel, has started 17 games and is averaging 3.5 points and 3.1 rebounds per game. Gitchenko's mother, Oksana, was in attendance for the first time for the Feb. 10 game vs. Coastal Carolina, in which Alex tied her career high with nine points. Oksana is a former Olympic basketball standout who helped Ukraine to a fourth-place finish at the 1996 Centennial Games in Atlanta.

• Georgia State has used 10 different starting lineups, with 10 different players starting at least one game. No Panther has started every game, and only two (Kamryn Dziak and Alyssa Phillip) have played in every game.

SERIES NOTES vs. GEORGIA SOUTHERN

• Deasia Merrill's last-second shot lifted Georgia State to a 58-56 over Georgia Southern on Jan. 22 in Atlanta. The Panthers led the entire way until a 3-pointer by the Eagles tied the game at 56-all with 26 seconds left. With the clock running down, Georgia State point guard Tehya Lyons found Kamryn Dziak in the corner. Dziak missed the 3-pointer, but Merrill ripped the rebound away from Georgia Southern's Mya Burns, and her short jumper from the baseline was good for the victory.

• Two weeks later in Statesboro, Deasia Merrill's basket tied game for Georgia State at 51-all with five minutes left, but Georgia Southern scored the next seven points and the Panthers were not able to recover. Tehya Lyons led Georgia State with a season-high 15 points.

• The Panthers have won two of the last three meetings against Georgia Southern and hold a 10-6 advantage in the series since the teams began playing as Sun Belt foes in 2014-15.

• Georgia Southern holds a 28-24 lead in the overall series, which began in 1977-78. 

• Head coach Gene Hill is 4-4 vs. Georgia Southern.

• The two schools are meeting in the Sun Belt Conference Championship for the first time.