Posted by BillFromTampa

Television announcers covering the game between Florida State and Mercer seemed rather surprised at the complete domination by FSU’s defense in blowing out the Bears 89-50. Color analyst Dan Bonner even commented “No one could have seen this coming.”

Obviously they were not paying attention when the Seminoles demolished the other two Atlantic Sun members they faced prior to playing Mercer.

For the third game in a row the Seminoles’ defense overwhelmed an A-Sun opponent. The carnage included 13 blocked shots by six different players led by Solomon Alabi’s 5 rejections, 11 steals (four by Luke Loucks), and a devastating 19.7% FG where the Bears connected on just 14 of 71 shots.

At the half Mercer was 5 of 37 with all five buckets coming from behind the arc. Mercer did not make a two point basket until 14:20 was left in the game when Daniel Emerson scored on an offensive put back.

The Bears were just simply intimidated by the taller and more athletic Seminoles who could not get hardly any breathing space inside once the ball went into the paint.

That was probably not what Mercer expected when scheduling the Seminoles as their homecoming opponent. By the end of the game many of the 3,200 capacity crowd had gone on to other festivities.

Leonard Hamilton praised his defense for being active and helping out when a teammate was beaten. “There is no doubt that our defense is the signature aspect of this team” Hamilton said.
“Our depth makes it tough on other teams as we are able to throw fresh bodies at them.”

It was not a crisp game on the offensive side of the ball for FSU however. The ‘Noles were sometimes sloppy bogging down at times in committing some needless turnovers (14). Mercer’s defense was aggressive in hounding FSU ball handlers but on occasion play was forced and at too quick a pace.

Hamilton commented, “Our offense is still not in sync. Our offense is not executing well especially in the half court. While we are taking what the defense is giving us it’s clear the defense is ahead of the offense.”

It was not all bad on offense though. Once again FSU put five players in double figures with Devidas Dulkys leading the way with points. Alabi, Xavier Gibson, and Jordan DeMercy all scored 12 and Derwin Kitchen added 10.

FSU did shoot well when they were executing converting 59% from the floor on just 54 shots and connected on 8-18 three pointers.

Defensively the ‘Noles held James Florence, the Bears’ leading scorer, to just 14 points well off his 20 ppg average. But FSU made him work for with Florence connecting on just 3 of 15 shots.

Player of the game went to Chris Singleton along with his 9 points, pulled down 14 rebounds, dished out a game high 7 assists, and added 2 steals and 2 blocked shots.

“His statistics don’t tell what impact he had on the game tonight” Hamilton said. “He was unselfish and showed that spirit of leadership.”

Indicative of that unselfishness was a pass Singleton received from Loucks and rather than force something, the sophomore forward made a perfect back handed bounce pass to a streaking Gibson for the slam dunk.

Another area of concern was rebounding where the Bears out-rebounded the taller ‘Noles 48-44 notably collecting 26 offensive boards. Accounting for part of that was the large number of three pointers Mercer took (32) that often led to long rebounds that seemed to carom right to a Mercer player.

The schedule gets significantly harder when Florida State heads to Gainesville in their annual game against the cross state rivals. Tipoff is at 7 PM on Tuesday November 24 and will be aired on Fox Sports South.