March 9-11 at Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, LA
(4) UT-Arlington vs. (2) Georgia State
ESPN2
570 - semifinals
(3) Georgia Southern vs. (2) Georgia State
espn3.com
569 - quarterfinals
(7) Troy vs. (2) Georgia State
espn3.com
That was an extremely satisfying championship run.
GSU got 27 points from D'Marcus Simonds and never trailed in defeating UT Arlington 74-61 in the Sun Belt final.
Simonds picked up Most Outstanding Player honors for the tournament despite struggling in the semifinal win. The sophomore was 8-of-19 from the field and 9-of-10 from the free-throw line (the team finished 16-of-20) a day after scoring only six points and fouling out in a 73-67 victory. When Simonds is driving to the rim and making lay-ups and/or getting fouled like he was Sunday, GSU is a tough team to beat.
Here's a great statistic: GSU trailed for a total of 18 seconds during this tournament. Georgia Southern took a 7-6 lead with 15:43 left in the first half of Saturday's game, and at the 15:25 mark, Coye Simmons of Georgia Southern picked up a foul and a technical foul, GSU went up 9-7 thanks to a 3-of-4 stay at the line and didn't trail for the rest of the weekend.
So, thank you Coye Simmons?
The defense was outstanding Sunday, holding Arlington's top two players - Erick Neal and Kevin Hervey - to a combined shooting performance of 4-of-29 and the team to just 29% from the field (17-of-57).
GSU is in the tournament for the first time since 2015, was given a No. 15 seed and will play No. 2 seed and American Conference champion Cincinnati in the first round on Friday.
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