In March 2015, a Georgia State guard with NBA range took two dribbles past midcourt, rose up from 30 feet, and sank one of the most famous shots in NCAA tournament history. R.J. Hunter's deep three lifted 14th-seeded Georgia State past No. 3 Baylor 57-56 — and sent his father, head coach Ron Hunter, tumbling off his stool onto the court in celebration, still wearing a cast from a torn Achilles suffered days earlier. The image — the shot, the fall, the joy — became March Madness folklore. For the Panthers, it was more than a moment. It was the program's identity, distilled into five seconds of basketball: the giant-killer from downtown Atlanta.
The Hunter shot wasn't Georgia State's first March miracle, either. In 2001, a 15th-seeded Panther squad stunned No. 2 Wisconsin 50-44, announcing to the country that this program — long the city of Atlanta's forgotten college team — had real tournament DNA. And the Panthers kept the magic alive in 2022, winning the Sun Belt tournament and returning to the dance under Ron Hunter, who had built the program's golden age and became a national treasure along the way. In Atlanta, those Marches are scripture. The Hunter shot replays every tournament season, and the question has never been whether Georgia State can shock the world again. It's when.
The "when" is now a rebuild. In March 2026, Georgia State fired Jonas Hayes after four seasons and a 48-79 record, closing a 10-22 campaign in 2025-26 that finished near the bottom of the Sun Belt. The Panthers had fallen a long way from the tournament program Ron Hunter built — and the school didn't wait to chase the next chapter.
Enter Jon Cremins, hired in April 2026 to become the program's new head coach — and one of the most intriguing young names in the sport. The surname is the first thing you notice: Jon is the nephew of Bobby Cremins, the legendary Georgia Tech head coach who turned the Yellow Jackets into a national power from 1981 to 2000. But the résumé behind the name is what got him the job. Cremins is a Roswell, Georgia native and Valdosta State alum who has been on a rapid climb through the game: he was a head coach at Spartanburg Methodist College from 2016-17, going 55-11, before joining Mark Byington's staff at Georgia Southern in 2018-19 and then following him to James Madison. There, he was part of one of the great recent mid-major stories — the 2023-24 Dukes who went 32-4 and beat Wisconsin in the NCAA tournament. Cremins then followed Byington to Vanderbilt, where he coached in the SEC. This is his first Division I head coaching job, and he's landed it with a real blueprint: player development, pace, and the culture that turned James Madison into a giant-killer.
The irony is delicious: Cremins' first taste of the profession came as an assistant at Georgia Southern, the school's fiercest rival. The Georgia State-Georgia Southern rivalry — "Modern Day Hate" — is one of the Sun Belt's most intense, born when the Eagles joined the conference in 2014. The Panthers host the Eagles this season on January 20 at the GSU Convocation Center, a date circled in red on both sides. Cremins knows the enemy's lair. Now he gets to lead the war from Atlanta.
The home court, fittingly, is the newest gem in the Sun Belt. The GSU Convocation Center, the Panthers' 7,500-seat downtown Atlanta home, opened to real fanfare — a gleaming modern arena with a massive videoboard and a street-level presence that gives the program a major-market stage. The investment matches the ambition: Georgia State didn't build a palace to finish 10-22.
The 2026-27 schedule, announced in September 2026, gives Cremins a proper debut runway. The Panthers play an exhibition at Georgia on October 7, then open the real thing November 2 at home against Bowling Green in the Sun Belt-MAC Challenge. November brings a trip to Charlotte (Nov. 5), a home date with Andrew College (Nov. 7), a flight west to Fresno State (Nov. 10), Norfolk State at home (Nov. 15), a trip to Jacksonville State (Nov. 20) — and then the Fort Myers Tip-Off, with games against Tulane (Nov. 23) and Florida Gulf Coast (Nov. 25) that will show the country where this rebuild stands. December features Mercer (Dec. 1), the Sun Belt opener at ULM (Dec. 5), Kennesaw State (Dec. 9), Texas Southern (Dec. 12), a December road swing at James Madison (Dec. 16) and at Pittsburgh (Dec. 18), and Coastal Georgia (Dec. 22) before Southern Miss comes to town on New Year's Eve and Louisiana follows on January 2. It's a schedule built for testing, not padding — exactly what a first-year coach needs.
The Sun Belt wars will define the season. Georgia Southern is the blood feud, but James Madison, App State, Troy and Texas State are all tournament-caliber programs now. The league that Georgia State once dominated in March has only gotten deeper — Troy won the 2026 tournament after surviving the Eagles' five-wins-in-five-days epic. The Panthers' history as the league's March team gives every game an edge, but recent history has been unkind: the rebuild starts from near the bottom, and the climb back is steep.
What defines Georgia State hasn't changed. It's the Hunter shot. The fallen stool. The 2001 Wisconsin stunner. The proof, etched into March lore, that this program can shock the world. Jon Cremins arrives with a surname that carries Georgia basketball royalty and a coaching education from one of the sport's best mid-major builders. The next chapter of Panthers basketball starts in a gleaming downtown arena, with a January 20 date against the archrival circled — and the ghosts of 2015 watching every shot. In Atlanta, the belief never died. The winning just has to come back.