Inside the box score: Florida State 64, FAU 59

1. Florida State is now 8-2 with a bad Charleston Southern team coming to town tomorrow. I hate to look ahead, but I will anyway. If Florida State can win that game and then somehow pull the upset in Gainesville, it would put the Seminoles at 10-2 in the out of conference season. That would be the first time since Ryan Reid's senior year (2009-10) that FSU made it through OOC with less than three losses. My preseason prediction was FSU going 9-3 in OOC play, so they are right on track.

2. FSU's rotation seems to be tightening a bit, with four players playing at least 29 minutes. After spreading the minutes around the first four games of the season, this is the 3rd time in six games that this has happened. Xavier Rathan-Mayes has averaged 31.8 minutes over the past six, after averaging 27.8 in the first four. Malik Beasley has played 30 minutes in three straight games.

3. FSU grabbed 14 offensive rebounds which was 34.1% of their own misses. The Noles are now 60th nationally in offensive rebounding (out of 351 Division I teams). The Noles only gave up 8 offensive boards. FSU is the 23rd best defensive rebounding team in the nation, and 2nd in the ACC. Three of the eight FAU offensive boards were actually blocked shots that went out of bounds. I don't like the way that these are treated as offensive boards as it skews the data to make teams that block a lot of shots (like FSU) seem to be worse at rebounding. When you see something listed as a "team rebound" it is either a blocked shot that went out of bounds, or a rebound which goes out of bounds prior to a team gaining possession.

4. This difference between 'team' rebounds and 'dead-ball' rebounds came up in another thread. Next time you're in a group watching basketball, poll your neighbors to see what they think a dead-ball rebound is. Likely, they'll be wrong, especially if you don't mention 'team' rebounds, which is how they'll probably define them. So you can win drinks on me - you're welcome! The concept of dead-ball rebounds came into play in the 1960s when scorekeepers noticed that stats weren't adding up in a perfectly closed-loop system. The problem was that the result of some misses weren't be accounted for. These were primarily A), missing the first of two free throw attempts, 2) having a shot hit the shot clock, or D) having a shot hit the rim, but then having the halftime or end-game buzzer sound prior to the ball being grabbed. These are dead ball rebounds and they are used to ensure that the box score is accurate.

5. FSU won 64-59 in a 68 possession game. While that is awful offense, the Noles defense stepped up big and held FAU to just 0.87 per possession. And this was after giving up 1.06 to the Owls in the first half. FSU's 2nd half defense was a thing of beauty. FAU kept calling a really slow developing play which involved running their best shooter through three baseline screens, and then three more if he wasn't open. This left the point guard dribbling the ball on his own for several seconds, and three times FSU's guards just took the ball away from him and were off on the break. FAU scored 24 points on 35 2nd half possessions, for an average of 0.69 per possesion. Florida State hasn't held an opponent below 0.7 per possession for an entire game in over two years.