FSU Basketball Talks With Chop Chat About Hot Start to Season
By Jason Parker
FSU basketball is off to their best start in over a dozen seasons – but the Seminoles still know there is plenty of work to do before they can be happy.
Saturday afternoon in front of a sparse crowd in South Florida, the Florida State Seminoles overcame a sloppy first half against a Manhattan Jaspers team with just three wins entering the game to come out on top with a convincing win. The victory improved FSU basketball’s record to 11-1 on the season.
The last time the ‘Noles had a record that good through the first 12 games? You have to go all the way back to the 2003-04 season – the second one for head coach Leonard Hamilton in Tallahassee – to find a team with 11 wins this early in the year. You can’t fault many fans of Florida State for not being familiar with what is going on this year with the men on the hardwood.
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Even with the great start, the Seminoles are moving forward with a sense of cautious optimism – a thought pattern that comes straight from the leadership of the head man on the sideline.
“For us, we’re still a team that’s evolving. We’re very fortunate to be 11-1 while we’re still growing,” Hamilton told Chop Chat shortly after the Seminoles’ 83-67 win inside the BB&T Center in Sunrise. “We have such room for improvement and that’s why I’m excited about this team – even though we’ve come out to this start, we haven’t come close to reaching our potential.”
The key to the Seminoles’ success for much of the year has been the balanced contributions from both the newcomers and those who have been through the recent years of NIT berths and coming up just short of making the NCAA Tournament. While forward Dwayne Bacon dropped 16 points and guard Xavier Rathan-Mayes added 10 more Saturday, freshman guard Trent Forrest added 10 points of his own – while freshman forward Jonathan Isaac had a stat line with nine points, nine rebounds, four steals and two huge blocks.
“(The) young guys are doing a great job and veterans are doing a great job of leading,” Rathan Mayes said. “Coach Ham always says we’ve got to have leaders and we’ve got to have guys willing to follow.”
For the first time in almost a decade, the ‘Noles are a team being hunted by others on the court. Ranked 23rd entering Saturday’s action, the Seminoles know they are now going to get everyone’s best game when they take the court – and there is no more flying under the radar.
“Every team is going to come out with tons of energy just because we’re a ranked team now, we’re 11-1 and we’re a team to beat,” said Bacon.
“For teams like that, we’re their national championship game,” Rathan-Mayes added. “Coach always talks about we got to play against ourselves and we just have to come out each day with a great mindset – a mindset to dominate.”
The action will pick up after one final non-conference game Monday against Samford. The Seminoles hope that they can have a better ending than the last time they got off to this hot a start – as FSU basketball went 8-13 the rest of the way during that 2003-04 season.
“It’s not going to get any easier now with moving on to ACC games,” said center Michael Ojo. “We have to stick to our system and that will help us.
Even while trying to remain grounded, the players admit that something special is going on – and know that for a program that has been to the Elite Eight just one time, there is no reason they can’t make history.
“We’ve got a chance to win an ACC Championship. I think we have a chance to win a national championship,” said Rathan-Mayes.
“I feel like we’re a deep tournament team,” added Bacon. “We just have to keep competing like we have all year.”