No. 9 Florida State continued the home trend of letting seemingly overmatched teams stick around against Winthrop on Tuesday at the Donald L. Tucker Center. The Seminoles also resumed the trend of notching victories with an 87-76 win.
FSU (12-1) closed the first half on a 22-9 run to take a 52-36 lead into the locker room, but in the second half, Winthrop (8-5) closed to within two with more than 12 minutes to play and to within three on multiple occasions. The Seminoles led 75-72 with under five minutes to play before Trent Forrest and Terance Mann combined for the next nine FSU points during a 9-2 run.
Mann led all scorers with 22 points on 10-for-11 shooting to go with seven rebounds. In his first start of the season, senior forward Phil Cofer finished with 14 points, including the first 12 for the Seminoles. David Nichols and Mfiondu Kabengele each had 10 points in the win. Kabengele added a game-high four blocks before fouling out.
Winthrop actually shot better than FSU at 49 percent to 47 percent for the Seminoles, but turned it over 21 times to just 11 for FSU. Florida State shot better from deep (8-for-22 to 6-for-23) and from the foul line (19-for-29 to 12-for-19).
Senior guard Adam Pickett finished with 19 points on 8-for-15 shooting to lead the Eagles. Charles Falden added 15 points and a team-high seven rebounds in the loss while Kyle Zunic and Micheal Anumba finished with 13 and 10 points, respectively. FSU center Christ Koumadje, a 7-foot-4 senior, led all rebounders with eight.
The win for Florida State ends non-conference play as the Seminoles get set to travel to Virginia for a top-10 match-up on Saturday. Winthrop begins Big South play on Saturday against UNC-Asheville.
Mike Ferguson is the editor of The Daily Nole. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeWFerguson
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