The Sports Inquirer

Georgia State will begin a 5-game, 10-day road trip at Colorado State on Friday night, facing the Rams at 9 p.m. ET at Moby Arena. The trip will take the Panthers to the states of Colorado, Michigan and Indiana before returning home.

Georgia State (1-1) is led by junior R.J. Hunter who was named Sun Belt Preseason Player of the Year and is averaging 22.5 points per game this season. Earlier this week he was named to the John R. Wooden Watch List as one of the top 50 players in the nation.

Colorado State (1-0) opened the season with an 83-66 victory over Montana last Saturday night. The Rams had six players in double figures, including Daniel Bejarano who scored 15 points and pulled down nine rebounds.

“Colorado State has a very good team,” head coach Ron Hunter said. “They had a little bit of a down year last year, but are a perennial NCAA tournament team. I think it will be a good early season test for us.

“Our team learned a lot from our game against Iowa State on Monday. The lessons learned are the types of things that will make us better moving forward. We stumbled early in the season last year and learned from it and I have no doubt this game will also serve as that type of learning experience”

R.J. Hunter enters the game already in the top 15 in several career statistical categories in Georgia State history. He is tied for 12^th in points (1,176), 10^th in free throws made (252), second in free throw percentage (82.6), third in 3-pointers (182), fourth in 3-point attempts (473), seventh in 3-point percentage (38.5) and eighth in steals (119). He will also move into the top 10s of field goals made, field goals attempted and games started early in the season.

Senior Ryan Harrow joined Hunter as an All-Sun Belt Preseason first-team member and on the Lou Henson Preseason Watch List as one of the top mid-major players in the country. Following a junior season in which he scored 604 points, tied for fourth most in program history, he could become just the fifth Panther to reach the 1,000-point career plateau in two seasons.

He is currently third in the Sun Belt averaging 18.5 points per game.