Joel Soriano scored a career-high 23 points amid his 22nd career double-double as St. John’s withstood Florida State’s 3-point barrage for a 93-79 victory Saturday in the Orange Bowl Classic at Sunrise, Fla.
Soriano, the NCAA leader in double-doubles with 10, hauled in 12 rebounds and teamed with Andre Curbelo to spark a 9-0 Red Storm spurt in the closing minutes to squelch a late Seminole rally.
The Seminoles (3-10) cut a 20-point deficit down to 78-72 before the critical late St. John’s run.
Dylan Addae-Wusu tied a career-high with 20 points and matched a career-high seven 3-pointers, while David Jones added 16 points and Curbelo had 14 for the Red Storm (11-1).
Darin Green Jr. set career highs in points (30) and 3-pointers (8) for Florida State, while Matthew Cleveland also set a career scoring high with 23 points for the Seminoles. Cleveland added a career-high 13 rebounds for his fifth career double-double.
Cleveland had six 3-pointers as the Seminoles were 14 of 19 from behind the arc.
The Red Storm had a 37-27 rebounding advantage and turned 16 Seminole turnovers into a 30-8 advantage in points off turnovers. They also had a 27-7 advantage in bench points
St. John’s broke away from an 18-18 tie approaching the 12-minute mark of the first half with a 10-2 spurt helping the Red Storm to a 31-22 cushion with 8:26 left before the break. They never trailed again.
The Red Storm got their first double-digit lead when an 8-0 run put them up 39-29, and their biggest cushion over the first 20 minutes at 48-36 came on Addae-Wusu’s fastbreak layup with 32 seconds left before Mills closed out the half with a free throw with 1.1 seconds to reduce the Seminoles’ deficit to 48-37.
St. John’s needed less than five minutes of the second half to build a 20-point cushion and was still up by that margin at 63-43 when the Seminoles went on an 8-0 run to cut the gap to 12 points.
The Seminoles later closed to within 73-64 on Green’s 3-pointer and within 78-72 on Cleveland’s jumper. But the Storm outscored the Seminoles 15-7 the rest of the way.
–Field Level Media
