2017–18 Georgia State Panthers men's basketball team

The Georgia State Men's Basketball team celebrates winning the Sun Belt Conference Tournament

After locking in the second seed in the Sun Belt Tournament, the Panthers' performance dipped in the last part of their regular season– dropping four of their final six games.[15][16] Able to shake free of that trend, Georgia State would beat Troy handily in the second round, 73–51, after losing to them twice in the regular season. In their semifinal game, the Panthers were once again pitted against in-state foe, Georgia Southern. The teams split their regular season contests– each winning at home. On this neutral court, GSU would defeat the Eagles 73–67 and eliminate their rival from the SBC Tournament for the second time in four years.[9] This rivalry game wouldn't end without some theatrics– with less than a minute to play, Georgia Southern cut State's lead to just three points. The Panthers held the ball while the shot clock ran down to two seconds, at which point the Eagles were called for a kicked ball off of an attempted Georgia State pass. As a result, the shot clock would reset to 20 seconds– with just 23 seconds left on the game clock. The Panthers called a time out, where Coach Hunter said he reminded his team of the new shot clock differential and instructed them to hold the ball until fouled should they successfully inbound the ball.[17] Once play resumed, the inbound pass was received by junior Devin Mitchell, who would later claim he thought Coach Hunter was talking about the game clock, and therefore still thought only two seconds remained on the shot clock, leading him to immediately turn around and shoot the ball from outside of the three-point arc and sink an unnecessary three-pointer.[18] This mishap would ice the game, sending the Panthers to the SBC Tournament finals. Meanwhile, top-seeded (and regular season champions) Louisiana dropped their semifinal game to 5th seed UT-Arlington, sending the Mavericks, a team Georgia State lost to just five games earlier, to face the Panthers in the finals.[19] The Panthers would handle UT-Arlington in the finals with relative ease, beating them 74–61, with the help of D'Marcus Simonds' game-high 27 points. Their SBC Tournament victory would give the Panthers the Sun Belt Conferences' automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Selected as a 15-seed, Georgia State was matched with the 2nd-seeded Cincinnati Bearcats for their opening game in Nashville, TN.[20][21]