Late in the second half of Wednesday’s 68-53 Georgia State road win, a UNCW fan sitting near the court said – loudly enough to be heard in the deathly-quiet arena – “Jeez, fella, you’re winning by 20, take it easy.” His comment was directed at Georgia State’s first-year head coach Ron Hunter, who was busy blistering eardrums in the timeout huddle.

With due deference to the bruised feelings of a dejected fan, he got it all wrong. Ron Hunter can’t afford to let up on his team, and he knows it.
“I’m trying to change the culture of a program,” he said after the game. “The old Georgia State gave games away. I need them to play the right way, and if they don’t, they’re going to feel the wrath of Coach Hunter.”

Hunter has his team above .500 in the CAA, and while they’re not quite ready to challenge the likes of Drexel, Mason and VCU night-in and night-out, they most definitely play the type of game that can cause fits for a powerhouse program in a one-game dogfight; just the kind of atmosphere they’ll find themselves in when they journey to Richmond in March.

Hunter is showing his range as a coach in his first season in Atlanta,turning his Panthers into a pesky team ranked 13^th in the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency per kenpom.com. This is astonishing, because the IUPUI teams Hunter coached over the past few years were anything but stoppers. In 2011, his Jaguars notched an abysmal 107.8 in the key defensive stat, good for 270^th in the nation. This season’s Panthers are an entirely different breed of cat, led by a tough-as-nails group of six seniors, each of whom is playing wholly committed defensive hoops.

To call GSU’s defense “active” would be an understatement. UNCW players had a tough time learning that a visible ball is a target, whether it’s held at arm’s length on the perimeter, raised above the head in a shooting motion, or held low in the blocks. Panther defenders will put a hand on the rock, which gets inside an offensive player’s head. Doing that well against cellar-dweller UNCW is no great feat, but Hunter knows his troops must finish the laughers if they hope to do the same in tight games later on.

If the new man at Georgia State can get his team playing inspired offensive ball – cutting and banging inside as they did against the Seahawks – he can rightfully expect to play spoiler in Richmond. The Panthers are woefully inconsistent from deep. They shot over 55% from behind the arc in the first half of last night’s game, then fell to 16.7% in the second, even as their overall field goal percentage rose dramatically. Bread and butter plays in the paint must become part of the daily diet.

A more-than-likely Friday start in the CAA tournament won’t bode well for GSU’s chances of winning enough games to advance to the Big Dance. Those coveted top four slots are pretty firmly in the hands of the usual suspects right now. Still, Hunter has served notice that opponents will, hereafter, be forced to fight the Panthers, who once seemed content to roll over and have their belly scratched more often than not.

If that means there’s a little more foot-stomping during the final time-out of a blowout win, then Ron Hunter will be that guy.