Troy Women Open Road Trip at Georgia State

TROY, Alabama – The Troy women's basketball team will make its first Sun Belt road trip of the season, beginning against Georgia State at the GSU Sports Arena on Thursday at 4 p.m. CT.

The game can be seen on ESPN3. Links to that broadcast, live stats and free live audio can be found at TroyTrojans.com. Fans in Troy can also hear the game on WTBF 94.7 FM. For live, in-game updates on Twitter, follow @TroyTrojansWBB.

Troy (6-5, 1-1) hasn't won or lost consecutive games all season, but will look to end that trend on Thursday as it comes in having won against defending Sun Belt champion Little Rock, 78-71, at Trojan Arena on Saturday.

In a game where neither team led by double-digits, Troy trailed by one point after three quarters, but opened the fourth quarter with five straight points to take the lead. Little Rock got within two with 2:32 to go, but Ashley Beverly Kelley scored or assisted on Troy's final nine points to secure the win.

Beverly Kelley was outstanding all night as she poured in 30 points on 11-of-20 shooting with eight rebounds, seven assists and three steals. That performance was a big reason Beverly Kelley was named the Sun Belt Student-Athlete of the Week on Monday.

The performance also catapulted Beverly Kelley into the Sun Belt scoring lead at 19.1 points per game. The senior Mid-Major All-American ranks third in the league in assists (4.4/g) and second in steals (3.3/g). She also now leads all active Sun Belt players with 1,526 career points, the seventh most in Troy history and just four away from sixth place.

Beverly Kelley leads a Troy offense that scores 84.5 points per game to rank first in the Sun Belt and seventh in the NCAA. She leads a defense that forces 25.5 turnovers per game to rank third in the NCAA, while its 12.8 steals is the sixth best mark in the nation.

Claresa Banks has also played well as of late for Troy as she has scored in double figures in each of the last three games. In the season's first eight games she averaged 2.9 points and 12.0 minutes per game, but since she has averaged 14.3 points and 28.0 minutes per game.

Georgia State (6-5, 1-1) will be playing at home for the first time since a Dec. 5 win over North Florida. Since then, the Panthers have won the Stetson Classic and split two Sun Belt road games.

The Panthers started league play with a 68-63 win at UT Arlington, but most recently lost at Texas State, 80-71. Plagued by injuries, GSU played those two games without its leading scorer Makeba Ponder.

Georgia State started both games slow, but came back from a 15-point first-quarter deficit to beat UT Arlington. However, at Texas State the deficit was too big as the Panthers trailed by 33 in the third quarter before outscoring Texas State 33-12 in the fourth to make it a nine-point game.

Georgia State leads the all-time series over Troy, 22-8, with 19 of those meetings coming between 1997 and 2005 when the two were members of the Atlantic Sun Conference. However, since Georgia State entered the Sun Belt, Troy is 3-1 against the Panthers, including wins in both of last season's meetings.

Those four Sun Belt meetings have all been shootouts with Troy averaging 93.0 points per game and Georgia State averaging 84.3 per game. Included in that is a 111-90 Troy win at Trojan Arena in 2014, the highest scoring conference game in Sun Belt history.

Following Thursday's game, Troy will travel to Statesboro, Ga., where it will take on Georgia Southern on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. CT.

For more information on Troy women's basketball, follow the Trojans on Twitter and Instagram at @TroyTrojansWBB.

For more information on Troy Athletics, visit TroyTrojans.com. Fans can also find the Trojans on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat by searching for Troy Athletics.

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Players Mentioned

Claresa Banks

Ashley Beverly Kelley