Guyn’s dominant performance for ETSU makes coach look good

East Tennessee State guard Ge’Lawn Guyn has been a scoring machine for the last two months, but he entered the Vegas 16 at Mandalay Bay coming off a disappointing 11-point effort in the Southern Conference championship game.

He more than made up for that performance with 34 points, 10 rebounds and six assists as the Buccaneers defeated Louisiana Tech 88-83 in Monday’s last quarterfinal.

“It was huge,” ETSU coach Steve Forbes said of Guyn’s production. “When you go into big games like this you need to have someone step in and have a big game and he’s a big-game player. He’s made huge shots for us all year long. I wouldn’t trade him for anybody. He’s been a tremendous player for us.”

Guyn, a senior wrapping up his career after transferring from Cincinnati prior to the season, has now scored in double figures in 18 of the last 19 games.

The season had ended on a bit of a sour note as Guyn went 4 of 11 from the field and fouled out of a 73-67 loss to Chattanooga in the conference title game.

The Vegas 16 gave him a shot at redemption and delayed the end of his collegiate career.

“He’s a competitor. I’m sure he felt mad about that, but I don’t think he was frustrated,’ Forbes said. “He loves to play. In a game like this when you’ve been off for a while, you’ve got to love to play if you want to be successful and he loves to play.”

Guyn helped ETSU finally pull away midway through the first half when he hit back-to-back 3-pointers within 20 seconds, then hit a pair of free throws when he was fouled after stealing the inbounds pass.

When the burst was over, the Buccaneers led 68-59 and the Bulldogs never caught up.

“It was like an 8-0 run by himself and when you can get that from somebody, it makes me look like a pretty good coach,” Forbes said. “Great players make great coaches.”

Louisiana Tech did get back within one possession at 70-67, but Desonta Bradford answered with a 3-pointer for ETSU.

T.J. Cromer and Peter Jurkin each had 12 points for ETSU. Guyn eclipsed his career-high, previously set when he had 32 points against Mercer on Feb. 20.

Dayon Griffin had 29 points and seven rebounds for the Bulldogs. Alex Hamilton added 23 and eight.

The Buccaneers advance to a semifinal game against Oakland on Tuesday at 8:30 p.m., setting up a showdown between Guyn and Golden Grizzlies star guard Kay Felder.

“That will be great matchup,” Forbes said. “Felder is a great player. He has the ball in his hands a lot and we play (Guyn) off the ball quite a bit so we’ll have to work on getting him the ball. I think now we’ve got our legs under us a little. It will be fun.”

Contact reporter Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5509. Follow him on Twitter: @adamhilllvrj