UVA’s big, high profile week continues, with Saturday’s win over UNC in the rearview mirror, Duke waiting for us next Saturday, and tonight an ESPN Big Monday match-up against fellow ACC New Blood FSU, currently the second ranked ACC program behind UVA. Tallahassee is one of the toughest places in the league to play these days, and making this road trip on just 48 hours turnaround will be a tough mountain for the Hoos to climb.

Game Details:

Date/Time: Monday, February 15th, 7:00pm EST
Location: Donald L. Tucker Civic Center, Tallahassee, FL
TV: ESPN

What ‘They’ Say

Depth Chart:

Starters

Key Reserves

The ABC’s of FSU:

A) They’re incredibly deep. No one in the ACC goes to their bench at a higher rate than FSU does. They go arguably 12 deep (not included in the roster roundup, just to keep this from becoming Tolstoy length, are 7-footers freshman Quincy Ballard and Senegalese-by-way-of-Canada grad-transfer Tanor Ngom), as coach Leonard Hamilton is always willing to play matchups and let his bench guys give his starters a breather, a big reason why FSU has won their last 11 overtime games (think about it, that’s an incredible streak, goes all the way back to December of 2015). My choice of starting lineup is a bit of semantics, as Hamilton can pick and choose how he deploys his numerous starter-level guys, with Evans possibly starting at the 2, Wilkes with 5 starts so far this year, and Osborne having earned a start against Wake Forest (Koprivica was held out for an ankle, but is expected to be available against UVA).

B) No one in America has a bigger lineup. Out of all 340-some-odd teams playing college basketball this year, FSU has the biggest lineup of them all, with an average height (weighted by minutes played) of 6′-8″. No one is shorter than 6’4″ (Evans), and they’ll sometimes have lineups featuring the 6’9″ Barnes and the 6’8″ Wilkes at the off-guard positions. It makes them a matchup nightmare for most every team, as their giant athletes can smoothly move the ball over smaller defenses, and their long wings can smother shorter opponents when the Noles are on defense. Long story short, Kihei is going to be playing in a forest even bigger to him than usual on Monday night.

C) They’re the ACC’s most efficient offense. Per KenPom, they lead the league in overall efficiency, effective FG%, and team 3P%. They’re 2nd in 2P%.Third in FT%. Second in offensive rebounding rate. Fifth in drawing free throws.

Their season to date:

FSU is 11-3 on the season, 7-2 in ACC play. In the non-conference they notched very good home wins over Florida and Indiana, though dropped a head-scratcher to UCF. In league play they dropped two road dates at bubble teams Georgia Tech and Clemson, but have held serve at home, beating top-half teams GT, UNC, Louisville, and Clemson. They went on a near-2-week COVID pause before returning to action Saturday in an overtime win over Wake Forest. Thanks to Covid pauses, they have only had to leave home for 3 games.

Keys to getting the win:

1) Keep them off the offensive glass. This is a pick-your-poison situation. The Noles can beat you from both inside and outside, and rarely are too reliant on either, staying pretty well balanced. I waffled on where I wanted to focus my attention. They shoot very well as a team, so when they do miss, you don’t want to give them another crack at it. After struggling to contain the league’s top-half offensive rebounding teams all season, the Hoos did much better against #1 North Carolina, holding them to 9% below their season average.

2) Don’t be stubborn on offense. “They switch ball screens one through five. They switch off-ball screens,” Tony acknowledged in his post-UNC press conference. “They really force you to make some plays off the dribble.” Sides, Inside Motion and Continuity Ball Screen are all going to be very difficult to run against the Seminoles. Was it for THIS game that Tony spent the off-season implementing the Five-Out set for? Look for the Hoos to get FSU to switch into bad matchups, then isolate and exploit. Expect to see a lot of Kihei working against Koprivica. We will need shooters in the corners ready to catch and shoot. It might also be a game to see if Reece Beekman can consistently make plays off the dribble.

3) Don’t fade down the stretch. Late runs have been the Seminoles’ forte this year as opponents get tired. While they really only play 8 players regularly, nobody is playing more than 73.1% of the minutes and 7 players see more than 40% of the minutes. It keeps their best players fresh but also engaged and helps them have more cohesion than when Hamilton was throwing 13 guys out there willy nilly. By contrast, Tony has shortened the bench in ACC play and cannot rely on meaningful production from anyone outside the starting lineup. The Hoos have done well down the stretch so far, but cold spells have been regular and could be fatal in this one.

Predictions:

Bennett vs Hamilton is the best rivalry in college basketball no one is talking about. They’re 7-and-7 against each other over Bennett’s tenure, with each having ACC regular season and conference tournament crowns. Obviously Bennett’s got a few bigger wins, including the Final Four and a second ACCT championship, but there’s a very real argument Hamilton was robbed of his opportunity to catch up with Bennett on both last year, FSU was playing that well going into March after winning the league outright.

On top of that, FSU’s home court advantage is similarly underrated, every bit as good as Cameron or JPJ in recent years; their last ACC loss at home was vs Duke in January of 2019.

On a neutral floor, with both teams rested, I’d still be tempted to call this one a toss-up. The computers and Vegas all have this as a virtual pick’em as well, unsure who to give the edge to, with Vegas opening with the Hoos a 2 point favorite before flipping us to a 1 point dog.

UVA has yet to beat a team in the KenPom Top 40, and FSU is a really, really tough out on their home floor, though Virginia did pull out a 4 point win there in 2018. FSU had their “COVID Pause Rust” issues in needing overtime to survive Wake, but hard to count on that in this one.

Expect this to be a battle, and maybe the best game in the ACC this year. The Hoos always get up for FSU, and FSU always gets up for UVA, meaning it’s rare this game is uninteresting. But I’ve gotta give the edge to someone, and unfortunately I’ve gotta give it to the home team.

Hoos Lose – 62-60