Andrew Platek scored a career-high 20 points on 7-of-9 shooting, including 5 of 6 on 3-pointers, as Siena defeated Florida State 80-63 on Thursday in an opening-round game of the ESPN Events Invitational at Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
Javian McCollum added 18 points and eight assists for the Saints (3-2), who started hot from the floor and finished at 51.9 percent shooting overall and 40.9 percent (9 of 22) from long range.
Matthew Cleveland led Florida State (1-5) with 14 points, while Cam’Rom Fletcher finished with 13 points. Fletcher and Cleveland added six rebounds apiece.
Down 43-26 at the half, Florida State ran off eight straight points after intermission, ignited by two dunks from Cleveland, to get their deficit back to single digits at 43-34.
Siena responded with an 8-2 run, with four of those points coming from Jackson Stormo, to push the lead back to 15, and Florida State never posed another threat. The lead grew to 20 in the last two minutes. Stormo finished with 10 points.
Caleb Mills added 11 points for Florida State.
The Seminoles shot just 36.4 percent from the floor and 26.7 percent (4 of 15) from long range.
The Seminoles cut an early 11-point deficit to two with about 12 minutes left in the first half, but they went cold again from the field, making only two of their final 12 shots while getting outscored 21-6.
McCollum scored 10 points during the burst, including a pair of 3-pointers. He also hit four free throws, the second pair coming after a technical foul with one second to go, when Florida State’s Naheem McLeod was ejected on a flagrant foul 2 for a hard elbow to the face of Killian Gribben.
McCollum scored 12 points and Platek added 10 as the Saints shot 57.7 percent in the first half, while making six of their first seven shots. Fletcher had nine points in the opening 20 minutes for the Seminoles, who shot only 29.6 percent from the floor.
–Field Level Media
