No. 11 FSU basketball vs. Boston College: How to watch, preview, game thread

The No. 11 Florida State basketball (13-4, 1-3) team gets its third shot at its first ACC road win today, as the Seminoles are in Chestnut Hill, MA to face the Boston College Eagles (9-7, 0-4). The game will tipoff at noon, and you can watch on ESPNU.

So, who is BC? They’re the No. 120 team in the country, per Kenpom, and No. 141 in the NCAA’s NET Rankings. The Eagles are pretty similar at each end of the floor, with the nation’s 132nd ranked offense and the 112th defense. The ’Noles and Boston College have played at similar speeds so far this year, with FSU 98th and BC 114th in adjusted tempo.

Junior guard Ky Bowman (6-1, 188) leads the Eagles in several key categories: points (19.9 PPG, third in the ACC behind Duke’s RJ Barrett and Zion Williamson), assists (3.6 APG), steals (1.5 SPG), and, as you might expect, minutes (38.6 MPG). Bowman is also second on the team in rebounds, with 8.0 RPG, and second with a 34.6% mark from long range.

If that three-point percentage seems low, that’s because it is. BC is even worse than Florida State from beyond the arc, making just 30.3% of its attempts— the lowest mark in the conference (FSU’s 31.3% is tied for 11th out of 15).

So where are the Eagles proficient? You’re really not going to like reading this after the Seminoles’ Pitt debacle, but Boston College is quite good at getting to the free-throw line. The Eagles get to the stripe 23.8 times per game, 33rd in the nation. However, unlike the Panthers on Monday night, BC doesn’t typically convert a great deal of its freebies, hitting free throws at just a 70.1% success rate—11th best in the ACC. FSU is sixth in the conference, at 73.8%.