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NCAA Tournament 2015 First Look: #3 Baylor vs. #14 Georgia State

The Bears are back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time ever in back-to-back years, and our reward for a season of exceeding expectations is a matchup with Georgia State Panthers.

Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

A little while ago, we found out officially that Scott Drew's Baylor Bears had broken the odd-numbered year curse to make the NCAA Tournament once again as a #3 seed in the West Region.  The challenge before them will be tough with Wisconsin and Arizona as the 1 and 2 seeds, respectively, but we'll talk about that another time.  Now, it's all Georgia State.

Opponent: Georgia State Panthers
Conference: Sun Belt
Head Coach: Ron Hunter, who tore his Achilles tendon during the celebration after the Panthers' win yesterday
Record: 24-9 (17-5)
KenPom Ranking: 71
RPI: 54

Full StatSheet Profile: Here

How They Got Here: By defeating Georgia Southern 38-36 (full game score) in the Sun Belt Championship yesterday.

Player to Watch: There are two:

  • R.J. Hunter: 6-6 junior guard who averaged 19.8 points per game and made over 46% of the Panthers' threes this season.
  • Ryan Harrow: 6-2 senior guard who averaged 19.4 points per game and made another quarter of the Panthers' threes this season.

The full team, courtesy of StatSheet.com:

So there you go. The game will be on Thursday at a time to be announced.  So far, I haven't seen this be a trendy upset pick anywhere, nor should it be by all accounts.

UPDATE: This IS a trendy upset pick according to ESPN and USAToday.  Interesting.