Florida State starts hot, cruises past Alabama State

Lajae Jones scored 20 points and Florida State continued its run of blowouts against overmatched opponents to begin the season with a 101-64 win over Alabama State Friday night in Tallahassee, Fla.

Jones hit his first six shots and first four 3-pointers, finishing 8-of-10 shooting with six rebounds while scoring 14 of his points in the first half.

Four other Seminoles scored in double figures, led by Kobe MaGee with 16 and Martin Somerville with 14, while six players had five-plus rebounds.

With this showing, Florida State (2-0) surpassed the 100-point mark in each of its first two games for the first time since 1988-89 and just the second time in program history.

Asjon Anderson led Alabama State (0-1) with 16 points, adding four boards and two assists. Tyler Mason tallied eight points and six rebounds for the Hornets, who shot 35.4% from the floor and 30.4% from 3-point range.

The Seminoles made things tough on the offensive end for the Hornets. Alabama State committed 17 turnovers -- 10 of which were Florida State steals, led by three from MaGee -- which the Seminoles turned into 31 points off turnovers and 16 fastbreak points.

Florida State shot out to an 18-5 lead less than four minutes in behind a trio of Jones 3-pointers and led 30-13 at the halfway point of the first half.

The Hornets cut that deficit to as little as nine points with 4:23 left in the half, but the Seminoles responded with a 17-2 run over the end of the first half into the second to open up a 54-30 lead that was never smaller than 22 points the rest of the way.

After he had just two points in the first half, Somerville went off in the second half with four threes to finish another explosive team perimeter shooting performance.

Florida State shot 47.3% from the field in the win, hitting 18 3-point attempts (38.3%). Through two games, it has shot 40.3% from the perimeter with 31 made 3-pointers on 77 attempts.

--Field Level Media