FSU vs. Syracuse: Game thread, how to watch

Seminoles look to avenge early season loss

By Perry Kostidakis@perrykos Jan 15, 2022, 7:00am EST

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NCAA Basketball: Syracuse at Florida State

Florida State Seminoles basketball, still shaking off the effects of a long layover in December, racked up a second straight conference win Tuesday, beating the Miami Hurricanes for the eighth time in a row.

“The biggest progress I see us making is mentally and emotionally,” head coach Leonard Hamilton said following the 65-64 win. “Being able to handle the highs and the lows, the things that are not going well.”

“I looked up once in the second half at who they had on the floor. They had some six-year veterans and I had three freshmen on the floor. I was proud of those guys, I thought they communicated well. They didn’t show any lack of confidence in what we were trying to do. I was very proud of our guys tonight because that was an important victory for us against an outstanding basketball team.”

From Michael Rogner’s excellent “Inside the Box Score” piece:

FSU quietly dominated the glass against the Hurricanes. Offensively, FSU grabbed 42% of their own misses which is well above the NCAA average of 28.4%. Defensively, the Seminoles secured 79.3% of their chances, again well above the NCAA average of 71.6%. FSU’s defensive rebounding struggles have been well documented in the past, and are largely a function of how the ‘Noles play defense and how they flow into transition offense. But it should be noted that this team is currently the best defensive rebounding team at FSU since the 2018-19 ‘Noles squad which featured five NBA draft picks.

FSU (9-5, 3-2 ACC) will have a chance to further prove their progress this afternoon vs. the Syracuse Orange (8-8, 2-3 ACC), who won on the road in Tallahassee earlier this season.

The Orange are coming off a 77-61 vs. Pitt, which snapped a three-game losing streak for Jim Boehim’s squad.

From our Syracuse sister site, Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician:

In order to win upcoming games, Syracuse needs to operate on a game-to-game basis. They cannot look too far ahead in the future and dissect each of their opponent’s weaknesses and exposing them.

The Orange ended up scoring 42 points in the second on 12-22 shooting while holding the Panthers to 27 points on 5-21 shooting. If Syracuse can continue to expose their opponent’s weaknesses as they did to the Panthers tonight, fans of the Orange could be in for an exciting second half of the season.

Florida State vs. Syracuse is set to tip off at 3 p.m., and will be broadcast on ESPN2.

Channel

ESPN2

Stream

ESPN, Hulu, FuboTV

Spread

According to DraftKings, Syracuse is a 2.5 point favorite over Florida State.

Game notes via FSU Sports Info

FLORIDA STATE FINDING THEIR WINNING WAYS

Florida State has won four of its last five games since December 15 with victories over Lipscomb (December 15, 97-60) at NC State (January 1, 82-81), Louisville (January 8, 79-70) and Miami (January 11, 65-64) and has won three of its last four ACC games with wins over the Wolfpack, the Cardinals and the Hurricanes.

FLORIDA STATE BY THE NUMBERs

Florida State enters Saturday’s game at Syracuse as the ACC leader in steals with a 9.9 steals per game average;

Florida State has earned eight or more steals in 12 of its 14 games;

Florida State committed a season-low six turnovers in its 79-70 victory over Louisville on January 8 in Tallahassee;

Florida State shot .813 from the free throw line (13 of 16) in its victory over Miami on Tuesday in Tallahassee;

Florida State’s bench outscored Miami’s bench by a 25-0 margin in Tuesday’s win over the Hurricanes.

SEMINOLES SHOOTING WELL FROM THE FREE THROW LINE

Including two of two free throws made by redshirt senior RayQuan Evans with 0.8 seconds remaining to be played in the Seminoles’ 65-64 win over Miami on Tuesday night, the Seminoles shot .813 from the free throw line – the third time this season they had shot 80 percent or better from the line in a single game. The Seminoles were made 12 of their 15 second half free throws in defeating the Hurricanes including each of the final five of the game – two by Evans (with 0.8 seconds remaining in the game), two by Anthony Polite (with 1:27 remaining) and one by Matthew Cleveland (with 2:40 left to be played). Florida State is shooting .725 from the free throw line in their last three games (50 of 69) and enter Saturday’s game against Syracuse as one of 12 teams in the ACC that is shooting better than 70 percent from the line as a team.