The Florida State offense is once again the story early in the season, as the ‘Noles rolled the Eagles 100-86 with all 11 Seminoles contributed offensively.
Guard Dwayne Bacon led the team in scoring with 15 points, but all eyes were on 7’1 senior center Michael Ojo following the Friday night victory.
The redshirt senior from Lagos, Nigeria recorded the first double-double of his career against Winthrop (2-1). 11 of Ojo’s 13 points came in the first half while, nine of those came exclusively from the charity stripe.
“He (Ojo) is a different player physically and mentally,” Head coach Leonard Hamilton said following the victory. “He is extremely aggressive and gives you 100% effort… Now that he is hitting his free throws, it looks like he can have a big year for us.”
It was a tail of two halves, for the Eagles. They came out playing competitive basketball early despite Keon Johnson who averaged almost 19 points a game last season sidelined with an injury.
Winthrop had the deep-ball cooking in the first-half hitting 5-9 from behind the arc, which prevented the Seminoles from being able to create any separation. Winthrop would keep it competitive as the first-half neared the end, despite leaving some free points on the floor shooting just 9-17 from the free-throw line.
FSU entered the break with a 53-46 advantage, creating 13 points off turnovers.
Out of the break, the Eagles hung with the Seminoles (3-0) for as long as they could. Winthrop had the lead trimmed to just four 58-54 five minutes into the second half. Florida State then jumped on a 9-0 run and never looked back.
The key to this Florida State team is the depth, and that has been shown early in the season and again tonight. They are able to wear opposing defenses down with their speed and size which creates mismatches all over the court and leads to unanswered runs that teams are not able to recover from.
“They are like Noah’s ark, they have two of everything all the time,” Winthrop head coach Pat Kelsey said. “This is the first time they didn’t just have two of everything, it seemed like they had four ‘7 footers. They just keep coming and coming.”
Along with Ojo and Bacon respectively contributing 13 & 15 points, freshmen Jonathan Isaac added 14 points to the mix while 7’4 sophomore Christ Koumadje matched Isaac’s 14-point performance.
Winthrop runs an up-tempo offense that will surprise some times this season, they are a big favorite to win the Big South Conference and take that final step of reaching the NCAA Tournament in March. Though when you live in die by the three, it can lead to both offensive blowouts or a team struggling to stay in the game.
The Eagles were hitting from behind the perimeter early, but fell cold in the second half hitting just two three-pointers on 14 attempts.
With the Eagles deep threat eliminated, Florida State continued to pound the post while throwing a barrage of alley-oops at the Winthrop defense.
Florida State is looking to win its first four games of the season since the 2011-12 season when they won their first six contest. It will have to come on a quick turnaround though as they will now turn their attention to the Detroit Titans (1-2). The ‘Noles and Titans will square off on Sunday at 5 P.M. in Tallahassee.
