While their opening four games of the season haven’t exactly been walkovers, the Birds of Trey are continuing to improve, even following a 28 point loss to ranked Florida State. 

While 86-58 may be considered a blowout, the final score only tells a partial picture as the Ospreys surged in the second half and freshman Jacob Crews had a breakout game off the bench.

Not to mention, Carter Hendricksen was out with an injury and the Ospreys had no returning starters on the squad from last year’s ASUN Championship team. Without Hendricksen, the Ospreys knew that they would have to play big and play aggressively against a lengthy Seminole squad.

“I don’t care if we foul,” Driscoll said in the postgame media Zoom call. “Let’s just be as physical as we can possibly be.”

The Seminoles, who were playing in their first game of the season after their opener was cancelled, outsized the Ospreys on the court and were led by their 6-foot-9 freshman phenom Scottie Barnes in this affair. Barnes finished with an impressive opening game for the Seminoles recording eight points, six rebounds and six assists.

On the Osprey’s side, Dorian James led the Ospreys in scoring and rebounding with 13 points and 7 rebounds. The surprising performance came from the bench as Jacob Crews got hot in the second half and showed his range going 4-6 from deep in the game. As for the two misses, one was an airball that has a good story attached to it.

“He actually shot an airball in the first half,” Driscoll mentioned “One of our assistants asked him about it and he said ‘Coach I don’t care about that, i’m shooting the next shot so don’t worry about me, I’m not one of those guys.’ ”

The second half performance by Crews fueled a run from the Ospreys where they cut the deficit to 11 with 8:49 left to go in the second on a three from, you guessed it, Jacob Crews. The run was cut short as Scottie Barnes scored on a transition dunk that you’ll probably be seeing on SportsCenter later today.

The Ospreys will certainly learn a lot from this contest against a ranked team, and Coach Driscoll knows that now is the time for the team to get better and for players to step as Crews did today. He praised the Osprey squad for rising to the challenge and having fought throughout the game.

“I’m really really proud and i’m really excited about where we’re headed next, which is High Point,” Driscoll said. “This team showed that they have fight and this team showed they have physicality,”

The team will have to keep improving even without their only returning starter as Coach Driscoll confirmed that Carter Hendricken will be out four to six weeks with a foot injury. As the team’s next contest is on Saturday at High Point University, Hendricksen is scheduled to be out until at least the beginning of the conference schedule.

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