1. Junior Frankie Sullivan had a game he’d like to forget, against a team he’d like to forget. For the night Sullivan shot 3-16, including 2-9 on 2s (22%) and 1-7 on 3s (14%). This is the fourth game in a row that Auburn’s 2nd leading scorer has failed to reach double digits. Since scoring a season high 22 against Long Beach State two days before Christmas, Sullivan has averaged 6.8 a game and has only converted 5-18 (27.8%) 2s and 3-13 (23.1%) 3s.
In last year’s FSU game Sullivan only scored 6 points on 2-7 shooting, and then missed the rest of the season following knee surgery.
2. In the first half Auburn made 5-33 shots (15.2%). This allowed FSU to take a 50-16 lead into the break. That’s the fewest points Auburn has scored in a half all season, and the fewest since their memorable tilt with LSU last season when they opened the game with a a six-point half. No team has scored 50 in the first half against Auburn in over two years. This game caused their defense to go from 110th to 139th.
3. FSU’s Michael Snaer had a career high 22 points, and in scoring 22 he only took 9 shots. The junior made 10-10 FTs and is now shooting 90% from the line for the season. His shooting percentages haven’t changed much from year to year, but from the line he’s improved from 66% as a freshman to 78% as a sophomore and now 90% as a junior. This is important as he’s been to the line more than any other Seminole.
4. FSU shot 54% for the game, but if you remove 3s from the equation they converted 71% of their 2s. Auburn entered the game ranked 37th in defensive 2-pt%, and exited the game ranked 80th. FSU’s bigs made 10-11 shots, mostly on put backs and layups following guards breaking down the defense, and their only miss was a Jon Kreft point-blank layup.
5. One of the Seminole hallmarks on defense is their ability to block shots. In 2009 they ranked 6th. In 2010 they ranked 4th. Last year they were 3rd and this year they are 5th. The announcers made plenty of comments down the stretch about the Seminoles 10 blocked shots, but Auburn attempted 65 shots. So FSU blocked 15.4% of Auburn’s attempts which is 4% below FSU’s season average. Bernard James is 19th nationally in blocked shots, and Xavier Gibson is around 50th. On Wednesday they had 3 and 4 respectively.
6. FSU has switched to a three guard offense in an effort to cure some of their extensive offensive woes. Against the Tigers they scored 85 points in a 70 possession game, or 1.21 per possession. This is the most FSU has scored in exactly two years, when on January 4th, 2010 they scored 1.30 per possession against Texas A&M Corpus Christi. FSU entered the game with the 187th ranked offense, and exited ranked 159th.
