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Inside the box score: FSU basketball lays an egg in Pittsburgh

The ‘Noles fall to 1-3 in the ACC

By Michael Rogner
NCAA Basketball: Florida State at Pittsburgh Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
  1. The loss dropped the ‘Noles to 1-3, and win shares via kenpom.com now project their conference record at 10-8. Is it time to panic? Revisiting the season round table, three of us predicted FSU to go 10-8. Matt had the ‘Noes at 11-7, Prince predicted 12-6, and Andrew said 9-9. So we’re pretty much in the sweet spot of expectations. That doesn’t take any of the sting away from the past four days, but if they can regroup they should be fine. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Trent Forrest and Terance Mann are clearly less than 100%, and since Coach Hamilton never discusses injuries, all we have to go on is how they look. This team absolutely needs them to be healthy. The fact that Trent had 19 points and 9 rebounds when it looked like he couldn’t get off the ground is amazing.
  2. After an excellent game against Duke, Christ Koumadje followed that performance up with another excellent game at Pitt (unlike sophomore Mfiondu Kabengele who fouled out in 11 minutes). He had seven points, 11 rebounds, and five blocks. He is now 8th all time at FSU in blocks, despite averaging fewer than 12 minutes per game for his career.
  3. In one stretch FSU missed 20 straight 3-point shots, and finished the game 2-22. In conference games, they are now last in the ACC in 3-pt shooting at 23%. For the most part, they’re getting great looks, but the shots aren’t falling. If they don’t figure out a way to get this turned around, the season could tank. The offense is too easy to defend if the defense doesn’t have to respect shooters.
  4. The refs were completely incompetent, which, unfortunately, is par for the course for an NCAA that refuses to recruit, pay, and adequately train the people who umpire a multi billion dollar business. If you watched any other basketball on Monday you saw game that was refereed very differently from FSU-Pitt. And that’s the problem. There is no consistency. No one knows what the rules are when each game tips. You just have to wait and find out. Pitt shots as many FTs (46) as they did field goal attempts. That is a free throw rate (FTA/FGA) of 100%. The previous high on the season was 56%. In the last four seasons no team has had a rate vs FSU of even 70%. It has been over 13 years since a team shot this many free throws vs Florida State. Freshman Xavier Johnson attempted 10 FTs in the game, which matched the season high for any opponent. But he’s No. 2 now as fellow freshman Trey McGowans went to the line 19 times. In the past decade, he’s the only player to attempt more than 17 FTs vs Florida State.
  5. FSU lost 75-62 in a 69 possession game. Throw out the Virginia game and that was the worst offense for FSU in a conference game in two years. The FSU offense is now ranked 42nd in the nation (finished 43rd last year), while the defense is 19th (33rd).

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