TALLAHASSEE, FLA. (AP) – Shakayla Thomas scored 19 points, Imani Wright had 16 and No. 12 Florida State (22-4, 10-3) defeated Clemson (11-16, 1-13) for the 18th straight time, 91-43 on Thursday night.
Thomas, who reached double figures for the 100th time, is the first Seminole to have three seasons making 200 field goals. Wright went 4 of 8 from distance, making it 17 straight games with multiple 3-pointers.
Florida State, which has won four straight, had six players in double figures. AJ Alix had 11 points and 11 assists and Chatrice White had 10 points and 16 rebounds. The Seminoles shot 52 percent for the game, had a 48-27 rebounding advantage and went 20 of 23 from the line.
Clemson (11-16, 1-13), which has lost eight straight, was led by Kobi Thornton with 17 points on 8-of-25 shooting. The Tigers shot 32 percent, went 0 for 5 behind the arc and 3 of 6 at the line.
POST-GAME NOTES:
• Florida State’s six double-figure scorers is the 18th time in program history it has registered six or more in double digits.
• Senior Chatrice White picked up her 11th double-double at FSU and the 35th of her collegiate career. She tied her career high with 16 rebounds and added 10 points and three blocked shots.
• Combining her Illinois and FSU stats, White has 212 career blocked shots which would unofficially place her in second place on the FSU career list.
• Redshirt senior AJ Alix added her third double-double at FSU, and her fifth game with 10+ assists.
• FSU’s 20 made free throws tied for its second-most this season. The Seminoles went 20-of-23 from the charity stripe, shooting 87 percent which is their highest of the season.
• Over FSU’s last two games vs. Miami and Clemson, it has recorded 88 points in the paint (46 at Miami, 42 vs. Clemson).
• Thursday night’s game was the eighth ‘Paint it Pink’ game for Florida State Women’s Basketball.
• FSU’s win streak is extended to 18 games over Clemson.
• Since the 2014-15 season, FSU has played Clemson and Miami two times each in the regular season. During that particular span, FSU is 16-0 against the two schools.
• Four-year seniors Shakayla Thomas and Ama Degbeon highlighted the senior class’ 107th win, a new senior class record at FSU.
• Former FSU legends Natasha Howard and Cheetah Delgado were in attendance at Thursday night’s game.
• FSU finished its second of three straight ‘Pink’ games. On Monday night at Duke, the Seminoles will play in the Blue Devils’ Play4Kay game at 6 p.m. on ESPN2.
Head Coach Sue Semrau
On Shakayla Thomas becoming the first Seminole to have three seasons with 200 or more made FGs…
“That’s why we recruited her. I know Steve (Stone) had mentioned she was close, but that’s an amazing accomplishment if you think about it. Before we talk about the game, this was a little kid that we recruited who we knew could do great things. She put a tweet out the other day that touched my heart which was ‘I’m living what I’ve prayed for’ and to be living that kind of dream takes a lot of work. It’s not just about being a talented young lady; it takes a lot of hard work so congrats.”
Opening statement…
“I was really pleased with our second half. I thought defensively we challenged them a little bit and they came out and did a much better job. Offensively, we didn’t shoot the ball great the first couple quarters and we just said just keep shooting. We re-established ourselves on the glass and that was really important.”
On the defense…
“There were some things that I thought maybe we could do better and we talked about those at the timeouts and I really liked the way we responded to it. I thought Kayla in the second half did a really good job on [Kobi] Thornton, and she’s a really good player, to make it harder for her to catch the ball rather than just let her catch the ball and then try to guard her.”
On tonight’s performance…
“We moved the ball. We didn’t wait to set something up, we played basketball. I thought it was really fun basketball to watch. I think it was probably really fun to play and then to have two players have double-doubles, AJ Alix with 11 and 11 assists and Chatrice with 10 and 16 rebounds. Sixteen rebounds is a pretty big deal around here.”
On finishing strong in the fourth quarter…
“It would have been easy for them to maybe just see what else was going on. There were some people that had family here and they narrowed in. You only have so much time and you need to focus during that time and put your energy there and I thought they did a great job of that.”
On the tradition of the ‘Paint It Pink’ game…
“I think you have to credit Florida State with their vision with TMH [Tallahassee Memorial Hospital] and that partnership is huge. The late Kay Yow was a great friend of mine and she had a vision to get some money donated for early detection which is huge. And you know Cheetah Delgado, who holds the record for single-season assists, did it on this night and her mom passed away from breast cancer. So it really goes back to so many different stories and what we can do with the platform we have.
On bottling up the momentum for the few remaining games in the regular season…
“I think the fact that we go on the road and play a very tough opponent has our attention. I don’t think it’s about the momentum as much as it is about how hard we work to get ready for that and this team knows that. We’ll take tomorrow off, we’ll play Monday and come back at it ready to really work.”
Senior Forward Shakayla Thomas
On fueling the momentum into the second half…
“Well we knew what we had to do, and we harped on defense all week. So to take that momentum we were just like we need to keep doing what we’re doing because if we keep this then it’s going to carry over into the next game then into the next game. So I feel like our momentum and our mindset was that this game should be just about defense and offense will come but we really need to harp on defense.”
On her third quarter…
“Coach Sue told me at halftime that I only had four points and it kind of stayed in my head. I was kind of like ‘Only four points? That’s crazy,’ and I feel like that’s not what I do. So, I feel like my teammates put me in a great position like always to score and they knew to throw the ball up and I would go get it.”
