Georgia State has the inside track to reaching the NCAA tournament once again.
On Saturday, in a winner-take-all clash for the Sun Belt regular-season title, the Panthers entered a daunting atmosphere at Hanner Fieldhouse and walked out with a 90-85 victory over Georgia Southern.
As its reward, Georgia State will own the No. 1 seed in next week's Sun Belt tournament (New Orleans).
Of equal importance, the Panthers now have the luxury of avoiding Texas-Arlington or Georgia Southern (bottom half of the bracket) until next Sunday's championship game.
Georgia State (22-9, 13-5 in Sun Belt) may have a decent NCAAs path for the third time in four years (along with 2015, 2018), but it's also not a lock, by any means.
Four of the Panthers' five in-conference defeats occurred away from GSU Sports Arena; and a potential semifinals meeting with Texas State (12-6 in Sun Belt action) could be dicey.
For Saturday's win, Kane Williams (23 points, four rebounds) and D'Marcus Simonds (20 points, four rebounds) assumed the biggest scoring load for Georgia State.
But make no mistake, this was a balanced effort. The Panthers' starting five accounted for 82 of the team's 90 points.