Florida State won’t have much time to dwell on a hard-fought 72-63 loss to North Carolina State on Saturday as the Seminoles get set to go into Littlejohn Coliseum to face Clemson late Monday night. FSU rallied from an early 17-point hole against the Wolfpack to eventually draw even at 60 with four minutes left, but managed just one basket the rest of the way to fall to 1-4 in ACC play.
At 10-7 and 2-3 in conference play early on, Clemson has been porous offensively, but have won games with defense and physical play. The Seminoles have struggled against players capable of producing inside and they’ll see another one on Monday in 6’7″ sophomore Jaron Blossomgame.
Blossomgame has scored in double-figures in 15 of the Tigers’ 17 contests this season and finished with 15 points and 12 rebounds in Saturday’s 66-53 victory over Syracuse. Blossomgame is a very good athlete and leads Clemson, averaging nearly 14 points and better than eight rebounds-per-game. Junior Landry Nnoko has served as a solid compliment up front, scoring better than eight points and averaging six rebounds.
To snag one on the road, Florida State will need contributions from at least one of its bigs on Monday. The Seminoles’ trio of 7-footers in Michael Ojo, Boris Bojanovsky and Kiel Turpin combined to score just four points in Saturday’s loss against N.C. State. After scoring a career-high 21 points at Pittsburgh on Wednesday, freshman Phil Cofer was held without a field goal in the loss for Florida State.
As Blossomgame does for Clemson, 6’7″ junior Montay Brandon leads the 9-9 Seminoles in both scoring and rebounding, averaging 13.5 points and 5.7 rebounds while shooting 57 percent from the field. Brandon led FSU with 20 points and 9 rebounds in Saturday’s loss.
The backcourt combination of Xavier Rathan-Mayes and Devon Bookert shot a combined 7-for-24 in Saturday’s defeat, but each are averaging in double-figures scoring for the season. Rathan-Mayes, a freshman, is getting 12.4 points and a team-high 4.5 assists-per-game while Bookert, a junior, adds better than 10 points and has made 27 of Florida State’s 67 3-pointers this season. The two however, have combined to shoot just 38 percent from the field.
Senior Demarcus Harrison has been the top guard for Clemson, scoring nearly 10 points-per-game and shooting 38 percent from beyond the 3-point arc. Fellow senior and backcourt mate, Rod Hall, is not far behind, scoring 9.5 points a game while leading the team with a 3.5 assists-per-game average.
The teams split the season series in 2013-14 with each team winning on the road. The Seminoles topped the Tigers 56-41 last season at Littlejohn Coliseum as FSU held Clemson to 30 percent shooting. Ian Miller paced the ‘Noles with 15 points as Florida State won its second straight game at Clemson.
Monday’s meeting is scheduled to begin after 9:00 P.M. eastern time and will be shown live on ESPNU.
