Florida State men blast UMass, 92-59, improve to 6-1 to start season
This is starting to feel a whole lot different than the past few years for the Florida State men’s basketball team.
Leonard Hamilton’s squad continued its impressive start to the 2024-’25 non-conference season Sunday with an overwhelming 92-59 victory over the UMass Minutemen in the Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-off Classic at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut.
The Seminoles are now 6-1 on the season and will welcome Western Carolina to the Tucker Center on Tuesday evening. If Florida State plays like it did on Sunday against the Minutemen, the Catamounts likely won’t have much of a chance either.
Florida State beat Temple 78-69 on Friday and then followed that up with the 33-point win over UMass on Sunday. The Seminoles had a 10-point lead at the half and then completely wrecked the Minutemen in the second, hitting 10 of their first 11 shots from the floor (and the one miss was an alley-oop dunk that was rebounded and put back in for an easy score).
Forward Malique Ewin continued his stellar tournament performance with 17 points and 7 rebounds in 24 minutes. Jamir Watkins added 14 points, and Jerry Deng and Justin Thomas each scored 10 points off the bench for the Seminoles, who wound up scoring 54 points in the second half on a scorching 21-of-30 shooting from the floor. (They were 20-of-26 before reserves took the court for the final minutes.)
In all, Florida State made 33 shots from the field and assisted on 25 of those. Chandler Jackson led the way with six assists, and fellow guards Bostyn Holt and DaQuan Davis had four each. Florida State had just 10 turnovers as a team.
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Meanwhile, on the other end of the floor, FSU was able to hold UMass to just 31 percent shooting from the floor. The Minutemen were just 3-of-21 from 3-point range and had 17 turnovers to just eight assists. They did have 17 offensive rebounds against the Seminoles, but only converted them into 10 second-chance points.
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Other than a 10-0 run midway through the first half by UMass, Florida State was essentially in complete control from start to finish. Leading 23-14, the Seminoles missed seven shots in a row and kept sending UMass to the free-throw line.
But after that drought, Florida State wound up hitting three straight 3-pointers to close out the first half, two by Deng and one by freshman A.J. Swinton, to take a 37-27 lead into the locker room.
And starting with the Swinton 3 in the final minute of the first half, and reaching to the 12:18 mark of the second half, Florida State made all but one shot from the floor as it built the lead to 60-34 by continuing to attack and exploit the UMass zone.
The Minutemen never made any sort of real run, and the Seminoles cruised to their sixth win in the first seven games of the season. Two years ago, Florida State started the season by going 1-9 in the first 10 games. Last year, the Seminoles were 4-6 in their first 10.
Now, FSU is 6-1 for the first time since the ACC Championship season of 2019-2020.
BOX SCORE: FSU 92, UMass 59
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