NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Tookie Brown had 13 points and eight rebounds and No. 3 seed Georgia Southern beat No. 6 seed UL Monroe 63-55 in the Sun Belt Tournament quarterfinals on Friday night.

Mike Hughes added 11 points for Georgia Southern, which advanced to face No. 2 seed Georgia State in the semifinals on Saturday. The rivals split the regular season series.

The Eagles (21-11) led almost the entire way but briefly surrendered the lead at 38-37, the Warhawks' first time in front since scoring the opening basket. The Eagles responded with a 14-2 run capped at 51-40 on Brown's layup with 5:30 left.

UL Monroe (16-15) cut the deficit to 51-45 and got no closer.

Sam McDaniel, Marvin Jean-Pierre and Michael Ertel had 13 points each for the Warhawks, who shot just 29.7 percent from the field. Travis Munnings had 14 rebounds to go with eight points and McDaniel grabbed 11 boards.

Georgia Southern Notes
• Last time the Eagles matched up against ULM, two Warhawks (Travis Munnings and Sam McDaniel) combined for 49 points in a winning effort. In today’s loss, they combined for only 21.
• The Eagles outscored ULM in the paint 30-10.
• The Eagles won only their third game of the season when they’ve scored between 60-69 points. They had lost four of their last five.
• The Eagles were able to snap Travis Munnings’ 13-game streak of scoring in double figures.
• Tookie Brown’s 13 points pushed him past Matt Simpkins for the ninth most points in school history.

ULM Notes
• The Warhawks were held to their second lowest field goal percentage of the season (29.7 percent/ 19-64).
• The Warhawks fell to 9-4 on the season when they've out-rebounded their opponent.
• Sam McDaniel recorded his tenth double-figure rebounding game as well as his ninth double-double of his career.
• ULM held the Eagles to 22.2 percent (4-18) from behind the arc, tying their second best defensive effort of the season.
• Michael Ertel scored in double figures for seven of final nine games of the season, averaging 15 points across that span.

ULM Quotes

Head Coach Keith Richard

Opening Statement:
“I want to congratulate Georgia Southern for winning and moving on. It reminds me of many of our games against them when we would play each other over the years since they’ve been in the league. They’re usually lower scoring as they were tonight. They’re usually possession games. There’s usually a lot of defense being played out there as there was tonight for a lot of the game, but yet somebody has a little more offense than the other and kind of goes on and wins. I thought that’s what kind of happened here tonight. They had just a little bit more offense than we had, particularly at the beginning of the game and after we took a one point lead. They had a little stretch there where they scored and we didn’t stretch it back out. They’ve got some stronger athletes that kind of bother us out there trying to score, trying to get by them, trying to get the ball inside, and trying to do a lot of things. We kind of searched all night, offensively, to find something that would work for us and it was tough. It was tough and ultimately we couldn’t get it done.”

On Georgia Southern keeping ULM out of the paint and off the line:
“I’d like to have LeBron in there and get some in there. We kind of are who we are. We didn’t win nine of our last twelve before tonight by scoring ‘x’ amount of points inside the three point line. We won by getting some in there and shooting the ball well. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much at all in there tonight. We needed to get a little bit and it was tough. They’re hard to go by off the dribble and they help a lot. Then when we throw it inside they’ve got some strength in there. It’s hard to go around them in the post and they help down the post a bunch. You’ve got to kick it out and hopefully make some threes or put it on the ground again. It’s tough. It’s tough for us because we don’t really have a low post presence so to speak or that type of thing. We knew that going in. I wish we would have shot the ball a little better. We made five of eighteen in the three point line in the second half, but two of them were really late there. The way it was going it just didn’t look like we were going to score a lot inside the three. We really needed to make some out there and we just couldn’t do it.”

On shots not going in:
“I, personally, think you have to make shots against them because they’re a very help-oriented team. They recover quickly. You can’t hesitate on shots unless you’ve got a beast in there that can really score. Even then, they come down and help a lot. Not every shot we took was a great shot, but we got a lot of good ones that we needed to make in this game to hang on. We shoot 32 percent from the three-point line. We probably needed to be 38 percent or somewhere up in there to give us a chance.”

Georgia Southern Quotes

Head Coach Mark Byington

Opening Statement:
“I thought it was a heck of a game and I thought our guys responded to a tournament atmosphere where things are just hard.  Scoring is hard, getting open shots, making open shots, handling pressure.  The way we started the game, with our defensive intensity, carried us throughout the game.  That’s what we’ve got to be, that is what we can be, and we beat a good team tonight.  We are going to enjoy it for about another five minutes, and then it’s going to be on to tomorrow.”

Munnings had 26 and 20 in the first matchup this year.  Was he a focus coming into tonight?
“Well if he got 26 and 20 again, I don’t like our chances. Even the last one went into overtime. He is a really tough match up for us and he is  inside-outside, he can post, he can do a lot of different things. McDaniel is a hard match up for us too, and I thought our guys took pride in our defense, they helped the guy that was guarding them, because we can’t guard those guys one-on-one. Our team defense was really good tonight, and to be able to slow those guys down was not easy, but I think we did the best we could.”

Ike Smith scored seven points, but they were seven straight after ULM had tied the game:
“I’m trying to get him to smile.  He led the league in scoring last year and shot a high percentage, and he has not been 100 percent this year.  Just to see him get on a roll – he’s a very good offensive player, so to see him kind of break loose there was good for me to see, good for him to go through, and good for the guys on our team – it gave us energy.  The guys want Ike to break out and when he made those shots, I think it gave us energy.”

On the quick turnaround for tomorrow afternoon.
“This is really quick.  Eat and go to bed.  Georgia State, we play them twice every  year.  They are familiar with us and we are familiar with them, so there can’t be an extensive scouting report.  But, D’Marcus Simonds – Player of the Year in the league, is a terrific, terrific player.  I peeked a little bit at the game before and they have a ton of guys who can make shots.  I think it’s the best rivalry in the state of Georgia.  Every game is tight, every game is hard, they are fun to be a part of and I expect tomorrow to be no different.”