PENSACOLA, Fla. — Senior guard Corey Allen dropped a season-high 29 points—including scoring nine of the final 12—to send Georgia State back to the championship game at the Hercules Tires Sun Belt Conference Men’s Basketball Championship for the fourth-straight time.
In a rematch of last year’s title game, the No. 3-seeded Panthers defeated defending tournament champion and No. 2-seeded App State, 71-66, in the semifinals to advance to their sixth all-time title game—all coming over the past eight events.
No team led by more than two possessions until Allen sunk a buzzer-beating three-pointer from the logo to give Georgia State a nine-point lead at the half, 38-29.
The Panthers maintained at least an eight-point lead thereafter, until an App State nine-point run from 8:26 to 6:59 cut the Georgia State margin to three, 55-52.
From there, Allen took over, scoring nine of the final 12—including five at the free throw line—to secure the victory.
Georgia State will square off against No. 8-seeded Louisiana in the tournament championship game at 6 p.m. CT on Monday, March 7. The game will be nationally broadcast on ESPN2. As the No. 8 seed, the Ragin’ Cajuns are the highest-seeded team to ever advance to the Sun Belt tournament championship game. The Panthers won both regular-season meetings between the two programs, most recently by a 65-58 margin on their home floor on Feb. 25 in the regular-season finale.
Georgia State has three Sun Belt tournament wins in five prior championship game appearances. The Panthers most recent tournament crown and NCAA Tournament appearance came in 2019.
Allen scored a game-high 29, while shooting .563 (9-of-16) from the field and .667 (6-of-9) from distance. Senior forward Eliel Nsoseme made it back-to-back double-doubles with 12 points and 10 rebounds in the win.
Senior guard Adrian Delph netted 25 points and graduate student guard Michael Almonacy scored 14 to pace the Mountaineer side.