by Bill from Tampa
Stop me if you’ve heard this scenario before.
Florida State used its defense and rode the second half offense of Toney Douglas to defeat another opponent, this time the Miami Hurricanes 80-67.
Assistant coach Stan Jones, who was responsible for developing the game plan against Miami, said before the game that it would take a team effort to guard Jack McClinton. It was as Douglas, Derwin Kitchen, Jordan DeMercy, and Devidas Dulkys all took their turns in guarding the Miami guard who had scored 101 total points in his previous three games.
The quartet of guards combined to hold McClinton to just 13 points that included just one three point basket. FSU frustrated McClinton all game long that saw the guard with just 5 points at the half and not another point until 6:24 remained in the game.
And by that time the Seminoles had a working margin of 61-48 punctuated with a steal by DeMercy off a McClinton pass to Dwayne Collins and the coast-to-coast slam dunk in, out-racing Collins to the hole.
After allowing Miami to shoot 44% in the first half the ‘Noles defense clamped down a little better holding the ‘Canes to 39% in the second. Had they been able to stop James Dews (19 points on 7-11 shooting) a little more, the percentage would have been even better.
And then there was the offense.
Shooting only 36% in the first half, FSU came out of the intermission connecting on eight of its first nine possessions on its way to a sizzling 58% second half performance.
The ‘Noles offense displayed good patience in working much of the game against Miami’s zone defense but did not get shots to go down in the first half in trailing at intermission for the fifth straight game, 31-30.
Leonard Hamilton said afterwards lack of attacking the basket and too many three point shots were the culprits. “We just did not execute our offense”, said Hamilton.
That changed dramatically coming out of the locker room. Kitchen smartly got the ball to Solomon Alabi on the opening possession for the three point play to give FSU the lead, 33-31, it would never relinquish the rest of the game.
Kitchen’s pickoff and subsequent basket ended a 20-11 FSU run giving the ‘Noles a 50-42 lead with 13:25 remaining.
Douglas led the barrage of fifty points in the second period scoring 17 of his 24 points after halftime. He also added 4 assists with no turnovers.
He had help with Uche Echefu’s 18 points (a season high) and 13 by Kitchen.
Still, with FSU leading by as much as 13, Miami made a run closing the gap to 67-63 when Adrian Thomas nailed a wide open three from the left corner at the 2:30 mark.
Hamilton called timeout seconds later to settle his team down.
They responded by closing out the game on a 13-4 run connecting on 8 of 9 free throws. In particular was Douglas with six points from the stripe and an assist on a DeMercy layup and Kitchen with three key rebounds.
DeMercy finished off the scoring with a reverse slam dunk.
Hamilton was also pleased with the efforts of his freshman players who he felt responded well after the blowout loss to Wake Forest.
At 7-4 in the conference (20-6 overall) FSU moves into a second place tie in the ACC with Duke and Clemson.
Never one to look ahead, even Hamilton sounded impressed and optimistic with the position FSU found itself in with the win. “If a few of those teams lose some games here at the end of the regular season, we could be right there,” commented Hamilton.
But as always he cautioned, “We still need to take it one game at a time.”
That next game will occur on the road Saturday night at 8:00 PM in Blacksburg as the Seminoles take on Virginia Tech, who lost Wednesday night, without the suspended Jeff Allen, 75-61 to Virginia .
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