A second straight opponent came into the Mitchell Center and took advantage of a lackluster South Alabama defense on Saturday.

Georgia State shot 55 percent from the floor with 10 3-pointers in a 90-76 victory over the Jaguars. The loss — two days after a 91-84 overtime defeat to Appalachian State in which the visiting team shot 59 percent — drops South Alabama to 8-7 overall, 1-2 in Sun Belt Conference play.

“We were really bad again defensively,” South Alabama coach Richie Riley said. “That’s back-to-back games we struggled to find stops. When you give up 55% from the field, it’s hard to win games.

“… It was a bad weekend. When you get swept at home, that makes it tough. Because you’ve got to be special to win on the road. We didn’t do our job this week.”

South Alabama trailed by two at halftime and got within a bucket twice in the first six minutes of the second half, but could never tie the game or re-take the lead. Georgia State (7-7, 2-1) began to assert itself with about eight minutes to play behind hot-shooting guard Toneari Lane, who scored 14 points in the second half and 20 in the game.

Lane scored all 14 of those second-half points — including four 3-pointers — during a 5-minute stretch in which the Panthers pushed their lead from 65-59 to 83-68. His third 3-ball put Georgia State up 78-65 with 4:53 to play, and South Alabama never got back within single digits.

“I just kind of felt like we rolled over a little bit,” South Alabama forward Thomas Howell said. “We tried to switch it up with the zone and didn’t have enough energy in that and gave them some open shots. Credit to them, they made them. But it’s just the energy, the want-to. We should have been able to get in that zone and cause some issues, but we didn’t do that.”

Lucas Taylor scored 22 points to lead the Panthers, who also had Leslie Nkereuwem (13 points), Jay’den Turner (11), Dwon Odom (10) and Brendan Tucker (10) in double figures. Turner had 10 rebounds, while Nkereuwem had seven.

Tyrell Jones led South Alabama with 22 points, while Samuel Tabe added 17 off the bench and Isiah Gaiter chipped in 16. Howell had a solid all-around game with eight points and a career-high 17 rebounds.

“I thought we played OK offensively, but we didn’t score enough points to be as bad as we were on defense,” Riley said. ” … Our effort has to be better. We’ve got to put ourselves schematically in a better position to get stops. Our effort has to increase, our care level to get stops has to increase, our toughness level has to increase.”

South Alabama played nine players at least 10 minutes on Saturday, though Gaiter played 39, Jones 35 and Howell 31. The Jaguars have been without two starters for the last several weeks, with guard Maxwell Land (knee) out for the year and 3-point specialist Judah Brown sidelined since mid-November with an ankle injury.

Riley said he had no update on Brown’s status, adding that it is “completely up to him” when he plays again. Brown averaged 8.5 points through the first four games before getting hurt against Nicholls on Nov. 16.

“It’s a pain-tolerance thing,” Riley said. “We’ve been waiting for a while. … When he feels like he’s ready to go, he can go. It’s completely up to him. So I’m not sure on the timetable.”

South Alabama is on the road for two games next week, at James Madison on Thursday and at Marshall next Saturday.