On Oct. 17, the Georgia State men’s basketball team was practicing in the sports arena, as the players prepped for the upcoming start of the year. Two players stood out in post-practice shootaround: guards Justin Roberts and Corey Allen.
“We’ve been playing hard. You know, me and Corey sat out last year, so you know, we’re just excited to really get back on the floor, to really play this year,” Roberts said.
Both players are coming off redshirt seasons where they had to sit out a year after transferring to Georgia State from DePaul University and the University of Detroit Mercy, respectively. Roberts is a redshirt sophomore and Allen is a redshirt junior. Both players have connections to the Panther family that run deep.
Roberts was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. His mother died from breast cancer, so he was raised by his father and his step-mother. Roberts attended Pike High School for three years.
Because of its location in the midwest, Pike High School is a major basketball factory, being the high school of former Atlanta Hawks point guard Jeff Teague, his brother Marquis and cousin David. Dallas Mavericks shooting guard Courtney Lee, as well as Panthers legend R.J. Hunter, also are products of the school.
For his senior year, he transferred to Findlay Prep in Henderson, Nevada after accepting a scholarship from them. He helped lead them to a No. 3 national ranking and was nominated for the McDonald’s All-American team that year. He was subsequently ranked as a four-star athlete.
Roberts grew up with Hunter, having known him and his father, former head coach Ron Hunter, since he was in elementary school. Living down the street from each other, Roberts says that Hunter was like a big brother to him, helping to teach him about both basketball and life. To this day, Roberts still talks to him on occasion.
Roberts also says that the Teague brothers are his two favorite players to come out of the state of Indiana, having seen Marquis play when he was in high school and because they are very active in the community, opening up a gym in his hometown where he has worked out in the past.
Allen was born and raised in Ypsilanti, Michigan, a small town just 10 minutes away from the University of Michigan. He and his family were huge Wolverines fans growing up.
Allen attended Ypsilanti High School, where he was ranked one of the top 10 high school players in the state by Bank Hoops and Prep Hoops. However, every year, they made it to the state championship and would always fall short. He also finished fourth in voting for Michigan’s Mr. Basketball during his senior year.
Allen was connected to Georgia State through former associate head coach Ray McCallum, who was his head coach while he was attending the University of Detroit Mercy. When Hunter departed to become the head of Tulane University in 2019, both managed to adjust to new head coach Rob Lanier.
Both have described coach Lanier as a feel-good personality who wants the best out of them and as someone who takes a deep interest not just in their basketball lives but also their personal lives, regularly asking them how school, family and friends are doing.
“I was real comfortable with coach Rob on the job and his style of play that he said he was going to do and how he was going to run the program,” Roberts said.
They’ve also described their teammates as being like a family for them and a brotherhood where they all have each other’s back. The redshirt seasons really served as an opportunity for them to learn from, study the games of the seniors and pick up on some skills that will help them this season.
“We’re like a family. We joke around with each other. We get on the court, I feel like it’s good chemistry,” Allen said.
Moving to Atlanta from two midwestern towns, Allen and Roberts enjoy being in the city. For them, it’s easy to balance school and sports because they manage to follow the schedule and do their homework.
When it comes to the most important traits for them, they say that staying humble, having good chemistry on the court and having confidence in each other.
Now that they’re finally eligible to play, Roberts and Allen are excited for the season to start and can’t wait to help the Panthers reach even greater heights this season.
“We gotta buy in to what coach says every practice, take it game by game,” Allen said. “We got some big games on our schedule and I think if we lock in, we can beat a couple of those teams.”
