After a rocky few minutes to start the game, in which many jump shots went long, the Seminoles settled down and cruised to an 87-61 victory over the Jacksonville Dolphins at the Tucker Center tonight.
Solomon Alabi led the Seminoles with 17 points and 8 rebounds in only 22 minutes of play. As a team, the Seminoles shot 59% from the floor, but an abysmal 58% from the free throw line. The Seminoles looked like a completely different team from the one that took the floor a year ago. The offense flowed and the big men were comfortable passing the ball in and out of the post. The guards ran the floor well and took control of this game. Alabi, Gibson, Reid and Singleton controlled the boards as the Seminoles out rebounded Jacksonville 42 to 22, with an Oreb % of 35%.
| Offense | Defense | |||||||||||||
| Date | Opponent | Result | Site | Pace | Eff. | eFG% | TO% | OR% | FTR | Eff. | eFG% | TO% | OR% | FTR |
| Mon Nov 16 | Jacksonville (sked) | W, 87-61 | H | 74 | 118.2 | 67.3 | 25.8 | 46.1 | 55.8 | 82.9 | 35.8 | 20.4 | 28.6 | 40.0 |
This was an outstanding offensive performance for the Seminoles to start the season. Their ORtg was an impressive 121. They only went over 120 once last year. However, the Seminoles turned the ball over on 26% of their possessions, but only had 8 turnovers in the second half, many of which came on ill-advised alley oops.
All in all the Seminoles should be proud of this start. Alabi had a great game. Snaer looked polished in his debut. The Seminoles dominated in the paint and the guards played a great game against Ben Smith. He put up 30 points on Georgia Tech last year.
There is still a lot of work to do, but this is an encouraging start.