Chauncey Wiggins poured in a career-high 31 points on senior day to lead Florida State to a convincing 91-78 win over SMU in Saturday’s regular-season finale for both teams in Tallahassee, Fla.
Wiggins made 10 of 14 shots, including a career-high 6 of 8 3-pointers, with nine rebounds and two steals. Robert McCray V added 17 points and 12 assists for the Seminoles (17-14, 10-8 Atlantic Coast Conference), who finished the regular season winning nine of their final 11 games.
McCray added four threes and Kobe Magee (10 points) made three as Florida State made 16 perimeter shots, its most in an ACC game this season. The Seminoles shot 51.7% percent overall.
Boopie Miller racked up a game-high 32 points, 28 of which came after halftime.on 9-of-13 shooting, including 7-of-9 from three. Samet Yigitoglu added 15 points and nine rebounds and Corey Washington tallied 12 for the Mustangs (19-12, 8-10), who have lost four straight and are firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble entering next week’s ACC tournament.
The Mustangs shot 42.4% from the field and were 12 of 31 from behind the arc.
After Florida State led in the opening minutes, SMU charged back to level the game at 18 with 7:52 left in the first half.
The Seminoles went supersonic from there, making their next six shots from the floor as they went on an 11-0 run. That was part of a larger 20-3 Florida State run to open a 38-21 advantage, with Wiggins scoring 10 of his 16 first-half points during that surge.
Overall, Florida State finished the first half on an extended 27-9 run to take a 45-27 halftime advantage, making 10 of its final 12 shots.
SMU shot 33.3% from the floor and 16.7% from 3-point range, turning it over 10 times. Washington led the Mustangs with eight points on 2-of-7 shooting.
That changed quickly in the second half, though, when SMU quickly got hot to chip into the sizable deficit. That was largely done by Miller, who hit six 3-pointers in the first eight minutes of the second half.
SMU cut the deficit to 11 points with 12:02 left after back-to-back 3s by Miller, but was never able to trim the margin to single digits. Florida State responded to that surge with eight straight points to push the margin back to 74-55 with 8:34 to go.
While the Mustangs made 10 second-half threes, Florida State made 10 of its own after halftime to negate that shooting success.
–Field Level Media
