BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Leonard Hamilton clearly thinks he has a team with a very high ceiling this season. After his Florida State team used a nice offensive outing by just about any measure to take home the championship in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic on Saturday night, he had a surprising description of his offense for anyone who looked at the stat sheet.
“We’re not really in sync offensively,” said the Seminole head coach.
It’s an understandable description from one standpoint that he elaborated on later. It is still November, and the Seminoles don’t have their entire system in place and the execution of that isn’t what it will be later in the season. But having 21 assists on 30 made field goals against just 11 turnovers is a pretty good place to be right now.
Hamilton’s comments are also indicative of how much potential he thinks this team has. With the depth the Seminoles have shown thus far, it’s clear the defending ACC champions are not about to slide downhill despite a few key personnel losses. They have regrouped, and despite having just one senior starter, have an experienced group that will also get contributions from freshmen. Illustrative of both is that the Seminoles have 114 career starts spread out among five starters, and true freshman Montay Brandon is starting at the point.
No player exemplifies their depth better than Terrance Shannon, who came up big on Saturday night. The junior forward had to redshirt last season after a shoulder injury he suffered against Connecticut in late November, but he’s back and an integral part of this team. He came off the bench for a double-double on Saturday night, scoring 15 points on 6-9 shooting and grabbing 10 rebounds in 27 minutes.
Hamilton said he was likely to start Shannon before the season started, and he’s certainly capable of it. But Shannon, who impresses you as a student of the game, has embraced the idea of coming off the bench.
“That’s the way he is, he likes to watch for a few minutes and then go in and give you effort,” said Hamilton.
Not many players who can start embrace the idea of coming off the bench; most do it reluctantly. That’s not true of Shannon.
“I take pride in bringing energy for the second group,” said Shannon. “I feel like we have a strong group of guys in the starting positions. We might play well, but we tend to slack off. I just want to bring that energy with the same group and maintain whatever we have.”
Shannon also had four assists and two turnovers, which goes along with how much better the Seminoles take care of the ball and run offense thus far. To be sure, Saturday night’s game was an outlier, as the Seminoles had 46 assists and 54 turnovers in their first three games. Last year, turnovers dogged this team at times, but what they did against a veteran Saint Joseph’s team on Saturday night bodes well for this team.
“We have guys with a higher skill set and guys who won’t turn the ball over as easily,” said tournament MVP Michael Snaer. “We have Devin Bookert, who, you’re not going to take the ball from that kid. We have guys like that who can handle the ball and make great decisions under pressure. That’s something we didn’t have in the past.”
To say that Snaer is the heart and soul of this team would be an understatement. Intensely competitive yet also appearing to have an easy-going side, the senior guard is the unquestioned leader of this team and does it on and off the court. He never stops trying to win, and it starts right at home as he has very high expectations of himself. He showed it on Saturday, where he scored 14 points and had four assists but meant much more to his team’s win than those numbers show.
In fact, he even had a moment of self-deprecation when talking about the team taking care of the ball in mentioning himself as one who turns the ball over. While the numbers back that up – he leads the team in that category with 15 thus far – he’s more than confident it will be taken care of before long and his willingness to openly take responsibility for tells you something about him.
“When he steps on the court, he feels like no one is better than he is, no one’s going to out-work him, and that actually motivates the rest of the guys,” said Shannon. “He does a lot of things behind the scenes also that people don’t know about. He lifts people up, he’s a vocal leader, he’s well-rounded.”
If only to reinforce what Hamilton and Shannon said about him, Snaer was done with his interviews while I spoke to Shannon and overheard some of it. When Shannon was done, Snaer poked fun at him and said he could have given me more than he did.
Florida State has a lot of experience back, even though Snaer is the only senior who plays significant minutes. They can go very deep, which will only help at the defensive end where they specialize. And if Saturday night is any indication, the offense may be on its way to executing at a high level. They are all signs that Hamilton is more than justified in believing his team to have a great deal of potential this season.
