Here’s a quick update for everyone.

FSU Baseball moved to 14-0 on the season, after beating up on UNF last night 16-3. Jack Rye had 3 hits, one of which was a home run, and 6 RBI to lead the Seminole batters. Tony Thomas, Jr., Brandon Reichert and Buster Posey each had two hits. Tony Thomas, Jr. hit his eleventh double and second triple of the season. FSU, as a team, piled up 12 walks last night, which certainly didn’t help the Ospreys. Bo O’Dell notched his second victory of the year, giving up 3 runs in 5 innings of work.  Caleb Graham and Casey Whitmer finished out the game for the Noles.

Up next for FSU baseball is an exhibition game against the Philadelphia Phillies tonight in Clearwater, FL.  This weekend, FSU will aim for breaking the school record for most wins to open the season, against Sienna.  If FSU manages to win Friday, they will tie the record, and have the chance to break it on Saturday.

By Bill Kristoph

(I’m a bit under the weather, so I’m keeping this brief) 

FSU Baseball: The Seminoles remain undefeated after this weekend, with some too close for comfort victories over Appalachian State.  The Seminole bats remained hot and FSU’s starting pitching looked good.  The Noles face North Florida on Tuesday night and Siena next weekend.  The school record to open the season is 15-0, that’s within reach for this squad.

ScalpEm.com MVP of the Series: Jason Stidham, his hot bat helped the Seminoles in all three games.

FSU Softball: The Leadoff Classic was a rough at times for Seminole Softball, but in the end they came out 3-2 for the weekend.  The big disappointment for the Noles was the extra inning loss to Tennessee Tech, 9-8.  FSU comes home for a series against Meeeeeechigan Wednesday at 4pm and 6pm.

Men’s Basketball: Bill From Tampa always has us covered, but just in case you didn’t scroll down, FSU beat N.C. State over the weekend. It doesn’t make their 2nd half collapse any more palatable, but then again it’s the norm for the basketball team.

Women’s Basketball: FSU beat Wake Forest to finish up the regular season.  The Noles went 10-4 in the ACC and 21-8 overall. Coach Sue Semrau continue to do a fantastic job with the program.  They will face Wake Forest, again, in the ACC Tournament on Thursday.

“Man, it felt great,” said Thornton, who remains in the running for player of the year honors in the Atlantic Coast Conference despite the Seminoles’ recent struggles. “I know that’s the type of team we are . . . The type of team we are capable of being. When we play together, man, we can easily get wins. We can win by that margin.

“It was special, being my last time playing here,” said Thornton, who, along with Allen, walked along the student section courtside and slapped hands with fans at the end of the game. “I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs here. I’m matured a lot. I’m going to miss it.”

“When we play together, we can easily get wins,” Thornton said. “We can win by that margin when we’re all on the same page and we’re all playing together. When I have to go out and try to get 30, 35 and 20 rebounds, I don’t think we’re efficient. We won’t win as much. When we’re on the same page, the sky’s the limit. We can get on a run that way.”

“We have to pretty much play every game like it’s our last,” said Thornton, who finished with 17 points. “Play the game with passion.”

“We understand what Al has done for the whole team; we know he carried us on his back for the whole season,” guard Jerel Allen said. “We just wanted to play as a team, because we understand Al Thornton is going to make big shots, and we just wanted the team to get in a whole unity, a rhythm together.”

“Our players played at a much greater level of aggressiveness,” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said. “I thought our players rose to the occasion.”

On the team neeting on Friday, “We just wanted to tell the players how much they mean to us, and that we really don’t want to come back here [for an NIT game],” Allen said. “We want to make it to the Big Dance. They almost made us a promise, basically.”

“We looked at the positive things and the negative things, and how we are going to get back on the same page,” sophomore Uche Echefu said of the meeting.

“Al has raised his game up tremendously, and he’s been scoring an awful lot of points, but I’ve said from the beginning of the year, if we are going to be successful, we are going to have to have the full sum of all our parts working,” said Hamilton, whose team finishes the regular season next Saturday at Miami. “I thought the offense today gave everybody the opportunity to be involved.”

“We just wanted the team to get into a rhythm, have unity,” Allen said. “Whenever we do that, we play good. Whenever we just look to ‘Al, Al, Al’ we lose our rhythm. We talked about it. We want to play together.”

Added Thornton: “We pretty much poured our hearts out, and the guys came out today and did a great job responding.”

“We created opportunities for each other. In the past, sometimes we’ve gotten rushed, and we have tried to create for the individual and not create for a teammate,” Hamilton said.

“We’re a good offensive team,” Hamilton said. “But we haven’t given ourselves a chance (recently) by not making the extra pass.”

“We did a lot of talking this week,” coach Leonard Hamilton said. “We did a lot of soul searching. Everyone had to give whatever they had at this point. Our backs are against the wall. I just think we realized we had to be at our very best. Everyone had to give whatever they had at this point because our backs are against the wall. We can’t afford any more slip-ups.”

“We were going to be evaluated at the end of this game by how did we respond when we were dealing with some adversity,” said Hamilton. “I think they responded in a very positive way.”

On teh NCAA tournament, “I’ve never been, I never went to a game [as as fan], I didn’t watch it last year, I couldn’t watch it,” Thornton said of the Tournament and how much an invitation would mean to him.

FSU’s all-time leading scorer, Bob Sura, returned to have his number retired at halftime. After watching Thornton play live for the first time, he said the ACC Player of the Year candidate reminded him of himself. “Wow,” Thornton responded, “he said that for real?”

“What we saw today was just the more aggressive team, the more active team, won the ballgame,” Lowe said. “Right from the very beginning, the first play when Thornton gets the basketball and drove around us and dunked it, that set the tone right there. If you watched us, they just seemed like they were a step ahead.”

“We knew they were going to be ready for this game, so it wasn’t a surprise,” first-year NC State Coach Sidney Lowe said.

On Thornton’s last basket of the game (a three pointer), “The look I had on my face is because I was surprised that he did it so easily,” said the N.C. State head coach. “We talked about it the last couple of days. We worked on it.”

“They brought it,” N.C. State’s Gavin Grant said. “They outworked us. They’re a desperate team and they did what they had to do.”

“The last two games, teams have made a conscious effort of really fighting (McCauley) and taking him out of it,” Lowe said. “I just told him he’s got to work harder now — work harder on the post-ups and be more clever on what (he’s) doing.”

“Just mentally a lot of breakdowns,” Pack coach Sidney Lowe said afterwards. “On both offense and defense.”

Florida State vs NC State, Saturday 1:00 PM, TV – RLF

Records:
FSU – 17-11, ACC 5-9 (9th); Home overall 13-3, ACC 4-3
NC State – 14-12, ACC 4-9 (t 10th); Road overall 2-5, ACC 2-4 Last Five Games: FSU – 0-5; NC State – 1-4 Last Game:
Tied 31-31, FSU gave up 12 straight points to start the 2^nd half in losing 73-55 to Maryland.
Down by a point at the half, Sidney Lowe was taken to the hospital due to dehydration and flu like symptoms and NC State was blown out in the second half by UNC 83-64.

Key Stats (ACC only):
Scoring offense – FSU 71.4 ppg (7th), NC State 68.9 ppg (11th)
Scoring defense – FSU 73.2 ppg (9th) NC State 74.5 ppg (10th)
Free throws – FSU .783 (1st), NC State .731 (3rd)
FG percentage – FSU .444 (9th), NC State .477 (3rd)
FG percentage defense – FSU .468 (6th), .469 (7th)
3-pt FG percentage – FSU .388 (1st), NC State .387 (2nd)
3-pt FG percentage defense – FSU .351 (t 4th), NC State .380 (11th)
Rebounding margin – FSU +.5 (6th), NC State -5.2 (12th)
Assists – FSU 12.21 (10th), NC State 13.62 (4th)
Turnover margin – FSU -.64 (8th), NC State -3.62 (12th)
Steals – FSU 5.86 (9th), NC State 4.92 (11th)

Projected Starters (stats for all games)
Al Thornton (6-8) – 19.3 ppg, 7.3 rpg, .518 FG%, .429 3-pt%, .813 FT%
Ralph Mims (6-2) – 5.1 ppg, 2.3 rpg, .390 FG%, .368 3-pt%, .759 FT%, 66 A, 49 TO
Jason Rich (6-3) – 10.5 ppg, .509 FG%, .424 3-pt%, .819 FT%, 3.3 rpg
Isaiah Swann (6-1) – 9.6 ppg, .441 FG%, .357 3-pt%, .778 FT%, 89 A (1st), 59 TO
Uche Echefu (6-9) – 7.0 ppg, .433 FG%, .328 3-pt%, .763 FT%, 4.4 rpg (2nd)

F Gavin Grant (6-7) - 15.1 ppg, ..469 FG%, .325 3-pt%, .740 FT%, 4.2 apg

F Brandon Costner (6-8) - 16.2 ppg, .467 FG%, .369 3-pt%, .688 FT% 7.8 rpg

F Ben McCauley (6-9) - 15.6 ppg, .598 FG%, .664 FT%, 6.7 rpg, 89 assists (2nd)

SG Courtney Fells (6-5) - 11.7 ppg, .448 FG%, .327 3-pt%, .746 FT% 4.0 rpg

PG Engin Atsur (6-4) - 11.9 ppg, .509 FG%, .403 3-pt%, .833 FT%, 4.9 apg
It’s no secret that NC State has been very short-handed this season playing mostly just seven players. All five starters have played a large number of minutes each game with the lowest being 33 mpg by Atsur. Despite that the Wolfpack have been a very scrappy team that has fought as hard as they can for forty minutes. With two wins over Virginia Tech and a win over the Tar Heels, this is a team that Florida State should not take for granted especially since the Seminoles are on a five game losing streak.

Lowe has kept some of former coach Herb Sendek’s Princeton type style primarily because of the personnel he inherited. However, with his NBA experience, Lowe has installed some pro sets as well. His sets coming out of timeouts in particular has been very good.
It’s not an offense that will generally look for offense from its defense by creating steals and turnovers. NC State opponents average just over 12 turnovers a game.
Lowe calls all the plays and once he determines a weakness, he will continue to attack that weakness until the opponent stops it. In FSU’s case that been its interior defense.
That’s where Atsur comes in. While Atsur is not a slashing point guard helped along by still nursing a sore hamstring, the native of Turkey has the experience to adeptly pick apart defenses. Look for Atsur to find McCauley often down low who is very agile and can create shots for himself.
Grant is more of a slashing style of guard and has the ability to get to the rim.
For FSU to win the game, someone other than Thornton is going to have to pick up the scoring slack. Everyone except Thornton has seen their offensive stats remain static or go down, notably Rich, since point guard Toney Douglas went down with the fractured hand.
The game will be the final regular season home appearance for seniors Jerel Allen and Thornton. Each will be honored before the game. Bob Sura’s number will be retired at halftime.

By Bill Kristoph

It’s yet another exciting weekend of action for FSU sports.  Sadly, the Seminole Softball team is on the road playing a tournament in Columbus, GA, but FSU Baseball and Men’s Basketball team are at home this weekend.

FSU Baseball: The undefeated (10-0), #2 ranked, Seminoles host Appalachian State this weekend.  FSU beat Florida last Tuesday 14-6, and the offense has been red hot.  Expect more of the same this weekend, and with warmer temperatures in Tallahassee, the pitching might improve a bit too.  Keep an eye out on Tony Thomas, Jr., the most exciting player on the squad, and on freshman D’Vontrey Richardson, who has huge amounts of raw talent, as indicated by his gargantuan blast in Gainesville, that is orbiting the earth now.

FSU Basketball: I really don’t have a lot to say about them. Mainly because I’m not big on basketball, Bill From Tampa is, and because they are doing their usual choke job.  They beat Maryland earlier in the year, and then get blown out by them this past week.  I’m starting to wonder how much time Leonard Hamilton has left on the clock to get the program turned around.  He’s made more strides than Robinson did, but the Noles are still far from being a mid to upper tier ACC hoops squad.

And just a quick note about Seminole Softball.  They’ve been kicking butt too, with only one loss so far.  They’ll take on Nebraska, Mississippi State, Tennessee Tech and Seton Hall this weekend, plus any bracket play after that.  Go get ‘em ladies!

I’ve had enough bad news today.  So here’s a link to Good News In College Sports. It’s always uplifting.

“We made poor decisions, turned the ball over like we’d never played basketball before,” Thornton said. “We just really played stupid.”

Florida State Forward Al Thornton on bouncing back from the loss, “We just need to try and get better. We have two more games and we just need to finish strong. We have to put this game behind us and not dwell on it, because it will affect our next game. We need to learn from this.”

“We played very poorly in the second half. They got some turnovers and converted. They got on a roll and the crowd got behind them. Credit goes to Maryland because they outplayed us during the second half.”
.
“It was pretty much a transition game and kind of physical, too,” Thornton said. “I was kind of fatigued, but that’s no excuse. I should have made the free throws.”

“The crowd got going,” shooting guard Jason Rich said. “They started making passes, making dunks they hadn’t made on us in two years.”

Florida State Guard Isaiah Swann on Maryland’s 10-0 run at the beginning ofthe second half, “It was a little bit of everything. First D.J Strawberry tipped it in, and then we came down and turned it over. They scored six straight buckets at one point off of turnovers or quick shots. When you come to play at Maryland, and you get down by 12, you’re in trouble. It’s hard to come back, but at the same time we need to find it within ourselves.”.

Florida State Head Coach Leonard Hamilton, “I was really concerned at half time. We went into the locker room tied at 31-31, and I look at the stat sheet and notice that their starters only played ten, twelve and nine minutes. Two of our starters had played twenty minutes and I was concerned how that was going to affect us. Then we come out in the second half and give up five straight baskets, and we just dug ourselves that hole. When you play a team of their caliber, a team as hungry as they are and you dig yourself a hole like that, it’s really hard to come back.

On his team’s play, “We had a hard time finding that secondary offensive threat. We have not been able to get any consistency in the offensive game and we need that. When you look at the stats, with the exception of the beginning of the second half, we didn’t play that bad defensively. Our rebounding has been getting much better, but we couldn’t seem to get into it offensively.”

On his team’s tournament hopes, “We still have a chance. If you look back on the years, there have always been teams who shouldn’t have gotten in mathematically, yet they were still there. I think we need to keep a positive attitude and remember that we have seen teams that have had a turn around in their season; teams who have gone to the Final Four after finishing the season with 16-10 records, teams who have gone and played well in their conference tournaments. You just have to find a way.”

On FSU’s NCAA chances, “Mathematically, you still have a chance,” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said.

“What we have to do now is make sure we don’t allow ourselves to give in to adversity,” said Hamilton, whose team hosts North Carolina State on Saturday and closes out the regular season at Miami on March 3. “These types of situations can build character; it doesn’t have to tear you down.”

Regarding his inured hand, “Today at shoot-around, it was hurting a little bit,” Douglas said. “Before I get back on the court, I have to do some game-like situations.”

“We knew if we jumped on them they’re a real fragile team. We jumped right on them and got after them with a lot of emotion and intensity,” Strawberry said. “We were hoping they would fold, and they did.”

“We knew that if we jumped on them and got after them with a lot of intensity and energy,” Strawberry said, “they would not be able to handle it.”

Maryland Guard Eric Hayes On the defense of D.J. Strawberry, “In the first half, [Al] Thornton was hitting a lot of jump shots and getting them back into the game, but D.J. came out in the second half with a lot of energy and did a great job taking it to him. That really picked our intensity up.”

Bambale Osby on going up against Al Thornton, “He’s a tremendous player. He can pump fake and go to the rack, but we were able to run him to the ground. We wanted to keep someone fresh on him all the time. We just wanted to wear him down and that is what we were able to do.”

“This is a big step for Bambale because he’s had some situations where he’s had similar situations, and the ball hasn’t gone in the basket,” Williams said. “Tonight, he made everything: He made two big free throws for us, and he was a force.”

“He (Vasquez) spoon-fed me all night long,” Osby said. “Doing this is just a confidence builder.”

“The first half I committed two bonehead fouls. I put my team in a bad situation,” Strawberry said. “I just wanted to go out in the second half, the first four minutes, and just play as hard as I can and give my team an emotional lift.”

“I got two quick fouls; [the shoes] just weren’t working, so I had to change it,” Strawberry said. “Something had to change.”

“I thought, ‘When the second half starts, I’m just going to go crazy,’ ” Strawberry said.

“We’re playing at a higher level,” Strawberry said. “We’re stopping teams, and we’re running our offense well. Everybody on this team is contributing what they can, and we’re getting big wins.”

Looks like Nike’s been up to some viral marketing…

After a first half that had four ties and five lead changes resulting in a 31-31 score quickly got away from Florida State as the second half began. The Seminoles started 0-7 while Maryland went 6-8 from the floor in opening up a twelve point lead FSU could not overcome losing 73-55.

FSU seemed to have garnered some momentum in the first half holding the Terrapins to just two points over the last 8:05 overcoming a 29-21 deficit. But fueled by five straight run out lay ups by Maryland turned a tie score into a 43-31 deficit that essentially decided the game.

“We did not come out in the second half with the same intensity Maryland did,” Leonard Hamilton said after the game. “What was a tie game was all of a sudden a ten point game. We could not recover from that.”

The fifty-five points was the lowest offensive output for the ‘Noles this season as Hamilton’s team struggles to find a second consistent scorer after Al Thornton.

Once again Thornton carried the team in scoring 23 points along with 15 rebounds.

Isaiah Swann was the only other Seminole in double figures with 12 points.

It’s been a familiar story for FSU in trying to find other scorers to take the pressure off Thornton.

“We have not been able to get anyone else in the offensive flow other than Al,” said Hamilton. “Other guys are trying to pick up the slack. But they seem to be trying too hard. We have just not been able to find a second offensive guy we can count on.”

The loss drops the Seminoles to 17-11 overall and 5-9 in the ACC probably ending any chance of reaching the NCAA tournament barring a run in the conference tournament in Tampa.

The Seminole offense was out of sync for most of the game having almost as many turnovers (16) as field goals (17) shooting just 34% for the game. The Terps capitalized off the miscues scoring 15 points.

Maryland was led in scoring by reserve center Bambale Osby’s 15 points. In fact the Maryland bench outscored FSU’s bench 22-0.

Mike Jones (14), James Gist (13), and D.J. Strawberry (10) were Maryland’s other double digit scorers.

While FSU did well in the first half, the defense broke down in the second getting caught by too many transition baskets. The Terrapins shot 45% that included 8 of 14 (57%) three pointers.

A still positive Hamilton was focused on the two remaining regular season games and hoped the offensive woes can be solved.

First up will be North Carolina State that will be the final home game for Thornton and Jerel Allen. Tip off is at 1:00 PM.