‘Sad thing is the game is 40 minutes’: Eagles squander second-half lead in double overtime defeat to Appalachian State
Georgia Southern drops third-straight game
STATESBORO — As soon as the final buzzer sounded at the end of Friday night’s double overtime game between Appalachian State and Georgia Southern, both teams quickly vanished. Especially this season, it isn’t uncommon for the two teams to exit the court without shaking hands or lingering in an atypical arena.
Instead of slowly walking off the court, the lingering occurred in the home locker room, where the players and coaches didn’t finish trickling out for nearly 30 minutes. The game, in which App State won 84-78, ended at 8:30 p.m.
The first player to emerge was Prince Toyambi, still in full uniform. Less than 10 minutes after a 50-minute game, the 6-foot-7 center marched with purpose to the free throw line, with a trainer standing below the rim.
Toyambi, who recorded 12 rebounds in 25 minutes, both career-highs, stood on the line and methodically shot free throws. On a night where he put up some of the best stats of his basketball life, one stat obviously stuck out to him — 3-for-10 from the charity stripe.
So he practiced. He changed his form occasionally, and switched the rhythm, but didn’t stray from his line for about 15 minutes.
While Toyambi was going through a newfound post game routine, Kamari Brown made his way to the opposite free throw line. He too began rhythmically putting up shots from the line.
Brown, fresh off a 7 point, 6 rebound performance, planted his feet on the line and stood there for 17 minutes. Eventually after he saw Toyambi had dressed back into street clothes and was headed home, Brown bounced the ball in frustration and called it a night.
15 minutes after the game went final, head coach Brian Burg made his way to talk with the radio team for a brief interview and then made his way to talk with local media on Zoom. He spoke for eight minutes.
The loss to the Mountaineers was GS’ third straight, a fifth straight loss to App State and a second time this season that they’ve lost a game in which they led by double figures at halftime. GS led by 22 points with 15:08 in regulation.
“It’s a tale of two stories when you look at this game,” Burg said in his opening statement. “First half we played team defense and were extremely active. Second half we were not active and we allowed them to shoot at a high percentage.”
In the first half, GS held the visitors to 20 points, 28% shooting from the field and only 12 rebounds. The Eagles shot 57% in the first frame with 24 rebounds and had a 16-point lead at the break.
It was the third time this season where GS had a double-digit lead in the second half and lost the game. Burg said he and the coaching staff was honest with the team in the locker room.
“As soon as adversity hits, it’s easy to get negative, but that’s about life,” Burg said. “At some point the ball is going to stop bouncing and you’re going to go out into the real world. Whenever adversity hits, how are you going to respond to it? It’s really easy to point a finger and blame someone else. You have to be able to man up. You have to be able to take care of responsibilities and you have to be able to come together. You can’t fracture in times like this.”
There were moments where things went really well for the home team — recording the most rebounds against a Division 1 opponent in several seasons (53), Zack Bryant with his fourth 20-point game and the team finishing with 11 blocks and five steals. But it wasn’t enough to outwill the Mountaineers.
“You saw how good we can be in 20 minutes,” Burg said. “Sad thing is the game is 40 minutes and we didn’t play the remaining 30 minutes in the game. You have to learn from that. You have to understand that we’re building a culture.”
With the loss to App State, the Eagles locked up the 5-seed in next week’s Sun Belt tournament. They'll face the loser of Arkansas State and UT-Arlington, who play Saturday in Arlington, Texas.
So with no possibility of improving their standings or losing their grasp on the 5-seed, will Burg be resting starters on Saturday’s regular season finale?
No.
“Our whole focus is on App State tomorrow at 3 o’clock,” Burg said. “We want to play to win the game. They can rest after. We’re going to go back to our routine.”
Out of town brief
Looking to build upon last weekend’s sweep of North Carolina Central, the women’s basketball team fell to Appalachian State, 77-66. Terren Ward and Ja’nya Love-Hill each scored 12 points, Eden Johnson had 11 points and Shondell Vickers had 10. Mya Burns led the Eagles in rebounds with six.
Like the men, the women have secured the 5-seed in the conference tournament. They’ll face Texas State at 12:30 eastern Friday, March 5 in Pensacola, Florida.
What’s next
MBB: 12-12; 6-9 vs App State (13-10; 7-7) Saturday at 3 p.m. Eastern
WBB: 11-11; 5-8 @ App State (12-11; 9-8) Saturday at 4 p.m. Eastern
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