Posted by BillFromTampa

The Florida State Seminoles takes the next ten days off for final exams. But prior to taking that break, the Seminoles made sure to take care of business. For the second time this season the Tribe reached the ninety point plateau in dispatching the Texas Southern Tigers 90-59.

It was a total team effort as each Seminole player found some way to contribute meaningfully to the win whether it was scoring, rebounding, making a defensive play or whatever.’,'Al Thornton celebrated his birthday by scoring 15 points and grabbing 8 rebounds. Jason Rich garnered his first career double double matching Thornton’s 15 points while pulling down 11 boards, four of them offensive rebounds.

Jerel Allen finally showed his shooting touch with 14 points including four three pointers. Andrew Wilson added 11 points with nine coming on three from behind the arc. Both were active on the glass as well pulling down four rebounds each.

Isaiah Swann was the other Seminole in double figures with ten points.

But other players also had strong performances that didn’t include just scoring points. Todd Galloway dished out 5 assists against just one turnover. Alexander Johnson was a force around the boards with 5 rebounds along with Casaan Breeden who also had five boards. Breeden went a step further making good use of his length to block three shots.

Still calling it a work in progress Leonard Hamilton was very pleased with his team’s effort going into the break. “We played with better concentration” Hamilton said. Commenting on the half court offense “we found shooters and got the ball into the hands of the right people.”

One part of the game plan was to get the post players at least 25 touches in the game. That did not exactly work out as planned as Hamilton felt the team could have gotten the ball to the post better. Hamilton credited Texas Southern’s defense for that in how they fronted the post and used good weak side help to prevent the entry passes to the post.

However the team took advantage of the strategy by nailing 13 three pointers in the game.

“The Tigers clogged the post and left the perimeter open. Fortunately we knocked down those opportunities” Hamilton noted.

Hamilton also noted several player’s efforts that don’t always show up in a box score. Along with their shooting, Hamilton mentioned Allen’s “defense is coming around” as well as Wilson’s leadership. Despite being hampered somewhat by a bruised calf, Hamilton also commented on Swann’s unselfishness.

The Tigers had one lead in the entire game. It came on the first score of the game when Ira Count hit a three pointer. Florida State answered building a seven point lead on the strength of four threes from three different players. With excellent ball reversal, Swann’s three pointer at the 14:39 mark gave FSU a 16-9 lead.
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Texas Southern though showed some stubbornness by scoring three straight threes to tie the game at 18.

FSU countered helped along by three baskets from behind the arc by Allen, FSU stretched its longest lead of the half, 42-25.

The ‘Noles would eventually take a 48-35 lead to the locker room.

Despite forcing the Tigers into 14 first half turnovers and capitalizing on those miscues, the Seminoles just could not stop the Tigers when they did shoot the ball. Allowing the team from the SWAC to shoot 48% from the floor that included 6 of 8 three pointers certainly did not make Hamilton happy.

“Texas Southern executed their offense well. Any one mistake we made and they made us pay” Hamilton said.

That changed dramatically in the second half as an even more stifling defense held the Tigers to just 17% shooting. For the game the Tigers only shot 32% from the floor.

FSU began to pull away slowly at first. But when Wilson hit his third three pointer in the span of 5:51, the game turned into a runaway with the ‘Noles leading 73-49.

Unlike the Louisiana Monroe game where the Seminoles went cold, that was not the case in this game. FSU continued to apply the pressure with blocked shots, offensive put backs, and all around intensity. Hamilton made sure of that when he called a timeout at the 11:21 mark to remind his team to finish out the game like they started it.

The Seminoles will use the time off during exams to get in some full scrimmages and allow the staff to do some recruiting.

The next time Florida State takes the court will be on December 17th in Mobile Alabama. The ‘Noles take on what Hamilton called a pretty good Bowling Green team. The Falcons earlier this season knocked off another ACC team in beating Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. Tip off is 8:00 PM and there is no television for this game.