Freshmen thrive in FSU’s season-opening win over Nicholls State

But with a roster featuring nine juniors and seniors – and FSU starting two true freshmen and two sophomores – Piper hoped that catching the Seminoles in their season opener might at least give his squad an edge in maturity and comfort level. In all, the Florida State freshmen combined for 62 points- as many as the entire Nicholls State team.

Florida State had five players score in double figures, including three freshmen.

Top recruit of the 2015 FSU class, guard Dwayne Bacon, led the team in scoring with 23 points as a starter. Beasley added 21 on 7-of-9 shooting and Mann added 15 points on 7-of-8 shooting.

Fellow freshman Malik Beasley started alongside Bacon and sophomore Xavier Rathan-Mayes as Florida State used a small but athletic lineup. “I anticipated we would struggle to score, I did not anticipate they would shoot the ball as well as they did for the duration of the game”.

The Gators (1-1) overcame a 15-point deficit to beat the Seminoles (0-1) for just the fourth time in the last 13 tries. They hit 13 of their first 16 from the field and led by as many as 28 in the first half as they were 21 of 34 from the field in the first 20 minutes. “If I’m able to do that on a night-to-night basis, I think we’re going to be OK”.

“I don’t know that we can run any faster”, Piper said.

Florida’s regular season finale against Florida State will kick off at 7:30 p.m.in The Swamp and be televised by ESPN, the SEC announced Monday.

Nicholls State: The Colonels hit four of their first seven 3-point attempts but were 3 of 19 the rest of the game.

Florida State (8-2) is 2-2 on the road this season. The Lakeland native also grabbed eight rebounds as the Seminoles steamrolled Nicholls State, 109-62, before 6,094 at the Civic Center. “That’s one of the things he (Hamilton) wants us to do”, said forward Phil Cofer, who had 9 points and five rebounds.

“We all know that they’re capable of being very good offensive players”, FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said. As coaches we have to evaluate the things that we are trying to get them to accomplish overall.

The Seminoles host Jacksonville on Tuesday and Hofstra on Friday before facing their first big test of the season, at Iowa on December 2.