Florida State women’s basketball crushes Virginia Tech

#13 Florida State (16-2, 4-1 ACC) cruises to a 107-62 victory over Virginia Tech (13-5, 2-3 ACC) this afternoon in Tallahassee.

Pre Game

Second year head coach Kenny Brooks has Virginia Tech headed in the right direction. He guided the Hokies to a 20 win season last year and an NIT fourth round appearance.

The Hokies are 44th in OPPP at 1.029 (FSU is 6th at 1.289). However, the Hokies hang their hat on defense. VT is 12th in DPPP at .767 (FSU is 54th at .833). VT struggles on the backboards. They are only 135th in offensive rebounding percentage and they are 277th in defensive rebounding percentage.

The Hokies are led in scoring by junior guard Taylor Emery (15.9 pg). Emery is a JUCO transfer from Tampa. She is an excellent free throw shooter (88%) and hits .435 from deep. Inside the Hokies are led inside by 6’3 forward Regan Magarity, a junior from Sweden. Magarity scores 15.4 points a game and leads the team in rebounding at 9.4 a contest. Chanette Hicks is a junior point guard who directs the offense. Hicks is an old school point who has only taken three triples all year but she leads the team in assists (6.6) and is third in points at 12.5.

Game Recap

The ’Noles started this game on fire. They scored the first 16 points of the game. They hit their first five shots of the game while forcing VT into missing their first eight shots of the game. This all happened with star forward Shakayla Thomas on the bench. Nicole Ekhomu started for Thomas as head coach Sue Semrau was trying to protect Thomas from picking up early fouls. FSU was up 16-2 when Thomas finally entered the game.

The Seminoles entered the second quarter with a 28-8 lead. The onslaught continued as the ’Noles began the period on an 11-3 run to build the lead to 39-11. FSU built that lead by combining hot shooting with dominant rebounding. Also, the Hokies were having trouble getting any shots to fall. The ’Noles closed the quarter with a Nausia Woolfolk jumper that put them up 53-26 at the half.

The Hokies continued to play hard but they could never get the score closer than 20 points. The ’Noles never let up en route to the 107-62 comfortable win.

Post Game

This was a team effort by FSU. Thomas was the only ’Nole over 20 points (21) but there were a school record seven Seminoles in double figures. The rebounding story was similar. Ama Degbeon had a double-double with 10 points and 13 boards but she was the only ’Nole with double figure rebounds. However, every single Seminole on the roster had at least one rebound. They beat the Hokies on the boards by 18 (48-30) which is their lead leading average in ACC play.

This was the fifth time FSU broke the century mark and a school record third time in ACC play. The Seminoles remain undefeated at home at 9-0.

This team is really clicking right now. It seems that they took the Syracuse loss personally and are on a mission to prove that the real FSU team didn’t show up in Syracuse a week ago. The ’Noles had a big talent advantage over Virginia Tech - as they will over most teams they play - but they didn’t play like it. Blowouts like this occur when the most talented team plays hard from the opening whistle and that is what the ’Noles did today.

Next Game

The Seminoles will head to Winston-Salem, NC to play Wake Forest (10-8, 2-3 ACC) on Thursday, January 18th at 7pm. The game will be shown on ACC Network Extra. The Deacons lost today at home in overtime to North Carolina 79-76. Sagarin favors FSU by 16 points.