Florida State Women Rout Wake Forest

Game Recap

Wake Forest (11-10, 2-6 ACC) got off to a rough start to begin ACC play. The Demon Deacons lost their first five ACC games but bounced back to win their last two games over North Carolina and Boston College. The Deacons feature a balanced attack with three players scoring in double figures and two more averaging over nine points a game. Unfortunately for Wake it wasn't enough tonight as Florida State (17-4, 7-1 ACC) again proved to be one of the ACC's elite teams winning going away by a score of 96-55.

FSU got off to a dream start. The Noles started the game on an 18-2 run which forced Wake to play catch up for the rest of the game. At the end of the first quarter the Noles enjoyed a 27-9 lead. Wake was never able to cut the lead under 10 for the rest of the game. Every Seminole cracked the scoring column in this one led by Brittany Brown's 22 points on 7-14 shooting. ACC steals leader Brown was the star of the game as she added nine rebounds, 11 assists and four steals to her stat line. FSU also benefited from big games from Shakayla Thomas (16pts, 7rebs) and Ivey Slaughter (15pts, 5rebs, 6stls). Maria Conde had one of her best games as a Nole chipping in with 15 points.

Once again the Noles were able to keep their total turnovers under 20. They have accomplished this goal in six of their last seven games. The only outlier was against Georgia Tech where the Noles had 29 turnovers. Unsurprisingly this was the closest game in the streak as FSU won 75-69. FSU is also playing much better on defense. The Noles held Wake to 40.5% shooting while outrebounding the Deacons 39-19.

Wake Forest is not a great team by any means and they won't be in the NCAA Tournament but for FSU to beat them by 41 on the road is an impressive performance. Sagarin had FSU as "only" a 20 point favorite. This is FSU's seventh straight win and the Noles just may be hitting their stride.

Next Game

Florida State welcomes Virginia Tech (14-6, 2-5 ACC) to the TLCCC on Sunday January 31 at 2pm. Virginia Tech got off to a great start at 13-1. However, the Hokies are now in the midst of the toughest stretch of their schedule. Their last six games were at (14) Louisville, at Syracuse, Clemson, NC State, at (3) Notre Dame, and (17) Miami. Predictably, they lost all of those games except Clemson. At least they can say that they have been tested.

The Hokies win with defense. They hold opponents to just over 50 points a game and 33.2% shooting (24.8% 3pt). The players to watch are junior guard Vanessa Panousis and senior forward Hannah Young. However, VT really spreads it around as no one player dominates in their system.

The Hokies do have an extremely impressive win at (19) Tennessee so they can be dangerous. However, the reality is that FSU should win this game comfortably, especially at home. The Hokies just don't have the talent to match up with a healthy FSU. Sagarin has FSU as 17 point favorites.