Cold shooting costs Florida State a shot at the ACC title

The fear in the preseason was that Florida State wouldn’t be able to knock down enough 3s to be effective. But that didn’t turn out to the case. For the season FSU shot a respectable 36% from the arc and that enabled them to earn the No. 2 seed in the ACC tournament.

But then in Brooklyn, those fears turned to reality.

FSU was able to get by Virginia Tech despite making just 3-16 3s. Against Notre Dame, Florida State failed to make a three in the first half while Notre Dame shot over 50%, and that hole was too much to overcome.

The 3-point lottery evened out a bit in the 2nd half, but FSU still came up short. The final was 77-73.

Notre Dame and Duke will play for the ACC title.

During the regular season Notre Dame was 2% better from deep than FSU, but tonight the Irish made 13-27 (48%), while FSU made just 5-15 (33%). Couple that with too many turnovers by the Seminoles (five on offensive fouls in the first half alone), and FSU just couldn’t ever get over the hump.

Florida State cut the lead to single digits and kept it there for the final ten minutes of the game, but they couldn’t string together enough scores-and-stops to take the lead.

Dwayne Bacon led Florida State with 18 points, and added nine rebounds. Braian Angola-Rodas made four of FSU’s five threes, and finished with a career best 17 points. Xavier Rathan-Mayes had 13 points and five assists, and Jonathan Isaac had five points and 15 rebounds.

Now FSU will have to wait until Sunday to hear their fate for the NCAA tournament.