Florida State defeats Southeastern in final exhibition of preseason 117-76

The Florida State Basketball team extinguished the flames against Southeastern, defeating the Fire 117-76 in their final exhibition game.

Florida State started the game with Phil Cofer, Dwayne Bacon, Boris Bojanovsky, Malik Beasley, and Xavier Rathan-Mayes on the floor, with Montay Brandon, a likely starter, still out with an injury.

Despite being tied at the first timeout at 11, the Noles turned their game up and started to pull away from SEU after the first few minutes. They had to do most of that without freshman phenom Bacon, who found himself in foul trouble committing two fouls in just three minutes.

By halftime, the Seminoles had built a 57-35 lead with every FSU player scoring at least one field goal. The offense seemed to gel well together despite the lack of a true center other than Bojo. With the exception of walk-on Michael Saxton, all eight 'Noles to play in the first half recorded at least one rebound and six Seminoles made three or more field goals. There was one early improvement with Florida State only recording two turnovers in the half, however free throw shooting continued to be an issue as they only made six of their 11 attempts.

FSU left off right where they were in the second half, starting 6-9 shooting while en route of pulling away from SEU.  At the halfway mark in the second half, the 'Noles had already mounted a thirty point lead over the Fire. Florida State forced mistakes early and often, as the Fire committed 19 turnovers which led to 27 points for the Seminoles.

The Seminoles shot extremely well from the floor all night, shooting 65.3%, but free throws were an issue that may be evident all season as they went 11-19. (57.9%). The big three freshmen played extremely well with Beasley, Bacon, and Mann scoring 23,17, and 10 points respectively. XRM added seven points and 12 assists while turning the ball over only two times, an impressive 6:1 assist to turnover ratio.

Florida State officially opens up their regular season on Sunday when they host the Nicholls State Colonials at 3 PM EST in the Donald L. Tucker Center.