FSU basketball vs. Siena: How to watch, notes, game thread

Nov 24, 2022 - 1:00 PM

FSU men’s basketball, fresh off its first win of the season, is looking to keep the positive momentum going today vs. the Siena Saints in the first round of the ESPN Events Invitational.

FSU (1-4) beat Mercer earlier this week in a shaky but encouraging performance, holding off multiple comeback bids by the Bears with big performances by Cam Fletcher and Naheem McLeod leading the way.

Siena sits at 2-2 after a two-game losing skid to Navy and Harvard.

From FSU Sports Info:

The Seminoles lead the all-time series against the Saints by a 1-0 margin as they earned an 89- 80 win at the Tallahassee Leon County Civic Center on Nov 18, 1992.

Carmen Maciariello is in his fourth season as the Head Coach for the Saints. He has faced the Seminoles once in his career as an assistant coach at George Washington when the Seminoles gained a 67-48 win over the Colonials in the BB&T Classic at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. during the 2016-17 season.

Darius Theus, an assistant coach on Maciariello’s staff, played at VCU (2010-13). He scored eight points and pulled down six rebounds as the Rams defeated Florida State, 72-71 in overtime, in the 2011 NCAA Tournament in San Antonio.

Florida State has a 5-1 record in the tournament currently known at the ESPN Events Invitational and won the championship of the 2009 Old Spice Invitational with victories over Iona, Alabama and Marquette. The Seminoles finished as the runner-up in the 2018 AdvoCare Invitational.

Florida State has won 11 of its last 14 games that have been played in the state of Florida and away from their home arena (the Donald L. Tucker Center) in Tallahassee.

Junior Cam’Ron Fletcher, who scored his career-high of 23 points in Florida State’s victory over Mercer on Monday in Tallahassee, enters Thursday’s game against Siena averaging a career-high 12.4 points scored per game. He has scored in double figures in three of Florida State’s first five games, and earned the second double-double of his career (15 points and 10 rebounds) against Troy on November 14. Fletcher ranked third on Seminoles with a 3.4 rebounds per game average and sixth on the team in scoring with a 6.8 points per game scoring average during the 2021-22 season.

Led by sophomore Naheem McLeod’s career-high five blocked shots in the Seminoles’ victory over Mercer on Monday night in Tallahassee, Florida State blocked a season-high 11 shots against the Bears, A total of five different players (McLeod, five; Darin Green, Jr., two; Matthew Cleveland, two, Jalen Warley, one; and Cam’Ron Fletcher, one, blocked at least one shot for the Seminoles. Florida State’s 11 blocked shots against Mercer was one more than its 2021-22 season-high of 10 blocked shots against Florida on November 14 2021 and were the most in a single game since the Seminoles also blocked 11 shots (Jonathan Isaac, seven; Terance Mann, one; Michael Ojo, one; PJ Savoy, one; Jarquez Smith, one) in an 83-80 win over Notre Dame on January 18, 2017.

According to DraftKings, Florida State is an 8.5-point favorite vs. the Saints, with the over/under set at 141.

FSU vs. Siena is set for an 11 a.m. tip from State Farm Field House in Lake Buena Vista, with the game to be broadcast on ESPN2.