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FSU's Alabi Comes Up Big

By COREY CLARK

The Tallahassee Democrat

Published: December 19, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - The Florida State Seminoles didn't know what to do with themselves.

There they were on Thursday night at the Donald L. Tucker Center, with five minutes to go against visiting Charleston Southern, and they had an insurmountable 27-point lead.

It was a different feeling.

"Yeah, it was kind of a shocker," laughed freshman forward Chris Singleton, who had nine points and five steals in the Seminoles' 71-48 win.

It was a much sharper performance than the 24-turnover effort FSU had on Tuesday in a 10-point win over Tennessee Tech, and it was by far the most lopsided win of the season.

"Let's face it, we didn't become better dribblers and passers in a few hours," said coach Leonard Hamilton, whose team had won all of its games by 12 points or fewer before Thursday night. "I think the level of concentration was extremely high. And they were focused on making sure they did the little things the right way."

It was the little things, as well as a really big center, that made the difference against Charleston Southern.

Florida State's 7-foot-1 center Solomon Alabi had the best game of his college career - and one of the best of his life - in the 23-point win.

The redshirt freshman had a team-high 16 points, 14 rebounds and six blocks in just 21 minutes against the smaller Buccaneers.

"You get a little glimpse of what Solomon is capable of doing," Hamilton said. "Now, he's come a long way since last year, when he was struggling to just get up and down the court."

He had eight points, seven rebounds and three blocks in each half. There were stretches where his size made it virtually impossible for the Bucs to get a shot off near the basket.

"We need Solomon to be a monster every night," Singleton said. "He controlled the paint. Any time someone came in there and he was close, it was right back at them. ... We just fed off of him. He was hungry, and then we all became hungry."

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