It seemed that everything the SMU basketball team did, Florida State had an answer for it. Except for Jaron Pierre Jr.

Pierre had his second-best offensive performance with the Mustangs, scoring 17 of his game-high 28 points in the second half of Saturday's 83-80 victory. All 17 of those points came in the final 8:47 of the game.

"My teammates trusted me. Guys like (B.J.) Edwards and (Boopie) Miller just trusted me the whole time," Pierre said. "They trusted my shot and having that next play mentality, not getting down on myself. Really just defense, starting off on the defensive end that turned into a lot of offensive possessions."

His second-half takeover started with Pierre scoring 11 straight points for the Mustangs. The last of which started a 7-0 run, which he finished, giving SMU a lead it would not give up.

"Well, if you let him loose too much, he takes advantage of it, so we have to pick our spots," SMU head coach Andy Enfield said. "But we did in the second half."

And that's not to say that Pierre didn't have an impact in the first half. He scored 11 points, including shooting 3-of-6 from the 3-point line, and was second on the team with five rebounds. He even had two steals and an assist.

But in the second half, he went into offense mode. It was something he did earlier this season and has the ability to do when the SMU coaching staff turns to him.

"Jaron has been terrific for us all season," Enfield said. "You saw the Texas A&M game. He had 35 points in a huge win for us at a neutral court. (Saturday), he had 28 (points), a big-time second half. We ran a lot of action for him, and he just found his spots and made some shots."

Edwards had a great start to the game, scoring 10 of SMU's first 17 points. But he cooled down some to finish the first half with 13 points and had six in the second half to finish with 19 in the game.

And Florida State wasn't going to let Miller take over the game. They limited him to just 11 points, but the Seminoles didn't have an answer for Pierre.

"A lot of our game plan was Boopie, and we did a decent job on him (Saturday)," FSU head coach Luke Loucks said. "He's such a good player. He's so crafty. He can get anywhere on the court. But the Pierre kid stepped up in a big way. The level of difficulty on some of his shots tonight was astonishing. And I'm coming from the NBA, where those guys can score—the best on the planet. Some of the shots he made, it was great defense, better offense. A big credit to him when a lot of our game plan was to slow down Boopie, for him to step up and lead their team in the way he did."

That's been a key to SMU's success this season. It hasn't just been one player doing all the work. The Mustangs have had three different leading scorers in the last four games. 

When it is their night or their number is called, everyone is ready to step up.

"The mentality of this team is that we work hard every day," Pierre said. "It's not going to be every guy's night every night. So we know that we have to hold everyone accountable and be great teammates and come out there and do our job. When one guy's not having a good night, the other guys have got to step up."