No. 20 Seminoles completely overwhelm Penn 105-70 to open season
When you haven't played a real basketball game in 18 months, the last team you want to face is the one Penn faced on Wednesday night.
The No. 20 Florida State Seminoles opened their 2020-21 season with a swarming, suffocating, turnover-causing, up-and-down 105-70 rout of the Quakers at the Tucker Center.
Penn, which didn't play a single game last year as the Ivy League decided to cancel its season due to COVID, hung with the home team for a while in the first half, but then essentially got overwhelmed by the much deeper and much more talented Seminoles.
"I thought our players showed a tremendous amount of maturity tonight," FSU head coach Leonard Hamilton said. "I thought we've had good focus throughout the week. ... We got tremendous leadership from returning guys and I was pleased with the effort and the soundness that our first-year players gave us. …
"Defensively, I thought we were on point."
Florida State turned a 12-point halftime lead into one that got as high as 41 in the second half as the Seminoles' relentless defensive pressure and rebounding swallowed up the overmatched Quakers in the final 20 minutes.
Senior Malik Osborne, who started at center for FSU, had 18 points and a career-high 13 rebounds in the win. Fellow senior Anthony Polite added 17, and Houston transfer Caleb Mills, who missed his first five shots from the floor, finished with 14 points in his Seminole debut. RayQuan Evans also had 14.
Florida State forced 26 turnovers in the game and had 13 different players score at least one basket.
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BOX SCORE: No. 20 FSU 105, Penn 70
"I was beyond proud, beyond impressed honestly," Osborne said. "Not just the new transfers coming in, but the young guys as well. Just being able to get after it. They really just bought into our defensive scheme, buying into who we are as a team, who we are as a culture. And we just get after people.
"You really didn't know how it was going to translate from practice to a game, but these guys didn't miss a beat, honestly. They ramped it up."
The first half started slowly for the Seminoles as they struggled to make anything from the perimeter. At one point, they were just 2 of 12 from the floor. But that relentless defense began to wear on Penn, and live-ball turnovers became points in transition for FSU.
All told, the Seminoles forced 16 turnovers in the first 20 minutes and 10 of those were steals. Kentucky transfer Cam'Ron Fletcher had four by himself, the last one leading to a thunderous dunk on the other end to give FSU a 15-point lead with just a minute left in the first half.
"Cam'Ron is a ball of energy," Hamilton said. "We have to find a way to allow him to be who he is, but become a little bit more consistent with his decision-making. ... But you've got to give him a little bit of rope so he can start honing in his skills.
"And he loves to play defense, loves to rebound, and gives you everything he has."
Penn got three back to close the half when Fletcher fouled a 3-point shooter, but the Seminoles' swarming defense completely overwhelmed the visitors at times.
Osborne scored 17 of his points in the first half, with eight of those coming from the free-throw line. He also had five offensive rebounds during that stretch as FSU dominated the glass against the Ivy League program.
Florida State out-rebounded Penn 19-13 in the first half, including 10 offensive boards.
The Quakers were able to stay within 12 in the first half by hitting 5 of 13 3-pointers and 10 of 12 from the free-throw line. Florida State, meanwhile, was just 3 of 11 from beyond the arc with Polite, Evans and Osborne all hitting one each.
The second half, though, was a much different story as the Seminoles just bombarded Penn for the first 10 minutes until head coach Leonard Hamilton started substituting even more liberally than normal.
Fletcher finished with five steals and nine points in his FSU debut. Highly touted freshman Matthew Cleveland also finished with nine points, including a highlight-reel dunk off an alley-oop pass from Evans.
In total, FSU played 16 different players and shot 49 percent from the field. The Seminoles out-rebounded Penn 49-29 and had 37 points off of turnovers.
"We didn't shoot well from 3; we're a better 3-point shooting team than we showed," Hamilton said. "But they pressed us the entire game. But up until the last two or three minutes, we only had eight turnovers."
They play again on Sunday at rival Florida.
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