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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida States first game in nine days was a breeze. Leticia Romero and company looked quite sharp in their return from their finals break.Romero scored 22 points, and the seventh-ranked Seminoles rolled to a 95-39 victory over North Florida on Monday.Florida State had six players score in double figures, led by Romeros third 20-point game of her senior season. Ivey Slaughter and Imani Wright each scored 14 points for the Seminoles (11-1), which have won 10 straight games for the eighth time in school history.This was the best week of finals practice we had since Ive been here, said Florida State coach Sue Semrau, who is in her 20th season. They came back focused and ready to go. Its fun to coach when they are like that.The 56-point win is the eighth-largest in school history and marks the second straight year FSU defeated the Ospreys by more than 50. Florida State won last years game by 52.A lot of times you come out rusty, turn over the ball a lot and miss shots. I liked the type of defensive intensity and turned it into points on the offensive end, Semrau said.Florida State shot 52.1 percent (37 for 71) from the floor and had only seven turnovers. It forced North Florida into 28 turnovers and had a 34-7 advantage in points off turnovers.A Claire Ioannidis 3-pointer gave North Florida a 3-2 lead before the Seminoles scored 14 straight points. Florida State led 52-17 at halftime.Sierra Shepherd led the Ospreys (6-7) with 12 points, and Ioannidis added 11.BIG PICTURENorth Florida: The Ospreys have not defeated Florida State in seven attempts and are 0-2 against Atlantic Coast Conference teams this season. They lost 78-52 at North Carolina State on Dec. 4.Florida State: The Seminoles have had a lead of 21 points or more in all but one of the games during their winning streak. They remain the highest-scoring team in the ACC, averaging 84.1 points.STREAKING ALONGSince losing 78-76 to top-ranked UConn on Nov. 14, the Seminoles have won their last 10 by an average of 34.8 points. Five of those wins have come by 40 points or more.During the winning streak, the Seminoles are shooting 50 percent from the field and averaging 87.1 points. They are holding opponents to 34.8 percent shooting and forcing 23.2 turnovers per game.Just by watching them all I was thinking was how good we were going to be. It was a game that really showed us where we were and what we could be, Romero said of the UConn game.Romero missed the first two games of the season, including the loss to the Huskies, with a hamstring injury.STAR WATCHShakayla Thomas, who came into the game leading Florida State in scoring at 14.8 points per game, had 12 points, marking the ninth time in 11 games she has scored in double figures. She is the teams active leader with 61 games of 10 points or more.UP NEXTNorth Florida: The Ospreys return home to face Wofford on Dec. 30.Florida State: The Seminoles are at Mercer on Wednesday. The game will be a homecoming for Slaughter, who grew up in Macon, Georgia.---More AP college basketball at http://collegebasketball.ap.org and https://twitter.com/AP-Top25---Follow Joe Reedy on Twitter at www.twitter.com/joereedy St. Louis Cardinals Store . -- Peyton Manning will have all of his wide receivers available for the first time in a month when the Denver Broncos begin their playoff run Jan. Fake Cardinals Jerseys . Datsyuk will miss Tuesdays game against New Jersey and could be sidelined longer, while Cleary will likely miss at least the next three games. Its been an injury-plagued season for Datsyuk, who has suited up for just 39 games. https://www.cheapcardinalsonline.com/ . That gave fans outside Joe Louis Arena another chance to ask for autographs from the 19-year-old whose stardom in the NHL has arrived earlier than most expected. St. Louis Cardinals Pro Shop . The Canadian squad, skipped by Jennifer Jones of Winnipeg, got on the board first with two in the second end, and followed that with two more apiece in the fourth and sixth ends. Cardinals Jerseys China . "Were just throwing s--- at the wall hoping something sticks," said Tortorella about the possible line combinations for Fridays game against Columbus. The Canucks have lost five straight games and six of their last seven, leaving them in a logjam in the Pacific Division, currently sitting fifth - good for ninth in the Western Conference. Either side of the disastrous Australian tour of India in 2013, much comment passed within and outside the team about the lack of experience contained in the first touring squad chosen after the retirements of Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey.Among the points raised by certain Cricket Australia figures by way of a response was to say, A lot of these guys have experience in India, they play in the IPL. This was a little bit like saying that a belief in Father Christmas equates to a working knowledge of the North Pole: some vague geographical crossover but little else.Similarly, Australias forthcoming Test series in Sri Lanka has been knitted into a wider story about Project Asia, and the need to adapt to subcontinental conditions in order to succeed here. While it is undoubtedly true that Australia must lift in this part of the world, and that Sri Lanka is a part of the region, a closer reading illustrates that it is too simplistic to suggest the right formula here will work in other parts of Asia.Even a cursory glimpse at Australias record when travelling to face their three major subcontinental opponents bears this out in the most stark of terms. Since 1971 they have won only once - in 2004 - away to India, and only twice away to Pakistan - in 1998 and 2002 - since 1960. Yet over 13 Tests across five tours of Sri Lanka, the hosts have been victorious in just a solitary match, against Australias six victories. That win came after the Australians were left two players short via the horrible collision between Steve Waugh and Jason Gillespie on day two of the 1999 Kandy Test. Rain then curtailed matches two and three, gifting the series to Sri Lanka.It must be said that Australia have not always won their matches in Sri Lanka by vast margins, and, notably in Colombo in 1992 and Kandy in 2004, recovered narrow victories from most unlikely positions early in the game. There is also the fact that numerous Australians have produced something close to career peaks on these tours, in ways many of the same players did not manage elsewhere.Shane Warne was seldom better with the ball than on his return from a drugs ban in 2004, Damien Martyn and Darren Lehmann likewise with the bat. In 2011, Hussey scooped a hat-trick of match awards to help deliver a win for Michael Clarke in his first series as Test captain.But there are undoubtedly other factors at play on Australian visits to Sri Lanka that go beyond the vagaries of individual matches or combatants. These range from matters of climate, mentality and history to the demography of the island nation. All have raised their heads repeatedly, and Steven Smiths men may well capitalise on them once more this time around.Sri Lankas climate and pitches offer just enough assistance to seamers Where India and Pakistan have broken the spirits of numerous Australian pacemen, Sri Lankas tropical climes have always provided that little bit of extra encouragement, whether through the air or off the pitch. Warnes path was often smoothed in 2004 by early wickets to Gillespie and Michael Kasprowicz. In 2011, a deck in Galle prepared ostensibly for spinners was used grandly by Shane Watson and Ryan Harris, who made use of reverse swing and up-and-down bounce respectively.Perhaps the most telling examples actually come from when the tables are turned: Tom Moody never played another Test after being unable to handle the moving ball as an opener in 1992; on the same tour Mark Waugh made four consecutive ducks, earning the sobriquet Audi. Sri Lankas lone victory was set up not by Muttiah Muralitharan but Chaminda Vaas and Nuwan Zoysa, who dropped the tourists to 5 for 40 on the first morning before any wickets fell to spin.Australia seldom lose thee patience battle with bat or ball It isnt hard to recall subcontinental days when Australias bowlers have been bereft of ideas on how to claim a wicket: think Dravid and Laxman in Kolkata in 2001, Sachin Tendulkar in 1998 or 2010, or Shikhar Dhawans assault three years ago.dddddddddddd But those junctures never seem to come in Sri Lanka, with a wicket seldom more than an hour or two away. That is borne out by the indifferent records of Aravinda de Silva, Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara against Australia. In 2011, Sangakkara was out to Nathan Lyons first ball in Tests and also managed to be winkled out by Hussey. Equally, Sri Lankas spinners have been unable to swarm over Australia in the manner of Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, R Ashwin or Yasir Shah. Muralitharan took plenty of wickets in 2004, but was outpointed by the combination of Lehmanns daring and Martyns doggedness. There is something mental to all this, doubtless linked to…A history of Australian success plays on the minds of both sides Repeatedly, it has appeared that when matches get tight, Australian self-belief overwhelms Sri Lankan combinations briefly but critically afflicted by doubt. Arguably this began in Colombo in 1992, when a mighty first innings should have paved the way for a home win. But Allan Borders team scrounged a narrow lead, before Sri Lankas effort to rush to the target was undermined when a skittish skied one from de Silva was held by a running Border. From there Greg Matthews and a young Warne engineered a great escape, and Australias first win anywhere in Asia for 22 years.Lehmann has spoken on this trip about the need to get a first-innings lead before the pitches deteriorate, but he can also recall winning 3-0 in 2004 after falling behind on first innings in all three Tests. Even the solitary Sri Lankan win only arrived after their shaky chase of 95 was helped by some exceedingly conservative umpiring to deny Colin Miller a clear caught-and-bowled and then a very adjacent lbw appeal. Sri Lankan Test crowds are small A great many spectators filed into the Asgiriya Stadium in Kandy as that victory in 1999 crept closer, but most of the time the atmosphere at Sri Lankan Tests is sorely lacking the sort of noise-inducing claustrophobia that can amount to a major competitive advantage. An Australian player once noted the contrast between sparsely attended South African grounds, where Australia have done well, and heaving English venues, where they have not. The same is true of Sri Lanka, where batsmen can hear each other call, bowlers can hear themselves think, and captains can plan in relative peace. Small wonder Sri Lanka Cricket are committed to raising their Test series attendances above 100,000 by paying attention to venue choices and ground facilities; touring teams eager to silence crowds in India rarely need to worry about doing so here.This time around, Australia should be heavily favoured to win the series anyway as the worlds No. 1-ranked side. Sri Lanka have some sizeable holes in their line-up, given a present dearth of fit pace bowlers and the abiding problem of how to cover for the loss of Mahela Jayawardene and Sangakkara, who are now ubiquitous on billboards rather than scoreboards in this part of the world.But just as Sri Lanka must look hard into the reasons why they so rarely taste Test success against Australia, so the visitors must weigh up what works here and nowhere else. All victories away from home have meaning, but a win for Smiths men in Sri Lanka may mean less in terms of next years trip to India than some might think. ' ' '