NEW ORLEANS – The Texas State men's basketball team (24-9) was eliminated from the 2019 Sun Belt Conference Tournament by No. 1 seed Georgia State (23-9), 59-46 at the Lakefront Arena. The Bobcats shot a season-low 21 percent (13-of-61) from the floor despite winning the rebounding battle (45-42), recording a season-high 94 percent at the free throw line (15-of-16) and holding the Panthers to 32 percent shooting (17-of-53) in the loss.
 
"I don't know if I have been in a game where we only shoot 21 percent," head coach Danny Kaspar said. "I thought our players played hard. They [Georgia State] shot 32 percent so I thought our defense was overall pretty good. You look at the stats we were 15-of-16 from the free throw line we out-rebounded them 45-42 including 16 offensive boards. The only glaring stat is 13-of-61 from the field and that's very tough to overcome."
 
For the second consecutive game Tre'Larenz Nottingham led the Bobcats in scoring with 13 points and freshman guard Mason Harrell finished with 10 points to compete the double-digit scorers. Junior guard Nijal Pearson pulled down a team-high nine rebounds but could not find the bottom of the net as he ended the game scoreless.
 
Senior forward Malik Benlevi led a trio of Panthers and logged a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds. Senior forward Jeff Thomas added 12 points and All-Sun Belt First Team selection junior guard D'Marcus Simonds was held seven points below his average, finishing with 11 points.
 
"I appreciate the efforts our players gave on the defensive end because the other team shot 32 percent," Kaspar noted. "In most games when you hold the other team to 32 percent shooting you're going to win. I told the players I haven't been in games very often where you hold a team to 32 percent and out-rebound them…it's a very strange stat sheet to look at. Very strange."
 
The Panthers scored the first five points of the game and although the Bobcats tied the score just after the first media timeout, Georgia State used a 13-4 run to create some space, 18-9 with under eight minutes left in the half.  Texas State's struggles were on the offensive end as they ended the half shooting 17 percent from the floor (4-of-23) and 14 percent from 3-point range (1-of-7). GSU went up by as many as 15 points and held a 28-15 lead at the half.
 
The shooting woes continued for Texas State in the second half and Georgia State used a 9-0 run to go ahead 37-17 early in the frame. Harrell provided some life for the Bobcats with back-to-back 3-pointers, but the Panthers juiced the lead back up to 22 points, 47-25 with 9:34 left to play. The Bobcats could only trim the lead to as low as 11 points as the Panthers went wire-to-wire to eliminate the Bobcats.
 
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