In recent years, watching a Virginia play FSU has been akin to taking in a heavyweight fight. Not a fight in the “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” “sweet science” sense, but like a sludgy bout filled with clutching and grabbing, where people in the front row are ducking flying drops of sweat and blood, there are points of contention at every break, and eventually the winner slips free for a couple of big rights in the 12th round.
The scores of last year’s games were 51-41 and 58-44. Neither team scored more than a point per possession in either game, as both teams were ranked in the top-100 defensively by Pomeroy and played to back it up. There wasn’t blood and no punches were thrown (thanks to Okaro White exhausting his eligibility), but it wasn’t pretty.
It’s been easy to dismiss FSU recently. We’ve won six of the seven meetings since they won the ACC Tournament in 2012, with the six wins all coming by double digits (an average of 13.5 points). The ‘Noles haven’t been “bad,” per se (they made two NIT appearances, advancing in both), but they haven’t posed a threat to what we like to do. In what have been low-possession affairs (none of our meetings have seen more than 65), we’ve been able to count on FSU to waste some (they’ve turned it over between 22.7 and 32.7% of their possessions in all seven games), give us extra ones via offensive boards, and generally fall apart late in games.
The tide might be turning. This year’s Seminoles are only turning the ball over 18% of the time, a number that would make them the first of Leonard Hamilton’s teams to come in under 20% since Ken Pomeroy started keeping statistics in 2002. All five of their losses (to Iowa and top-100 Hofstra out of conference, to Clemson and Miami on the road in the ACC, and to UNC at home) are defensible, and they’ve got top-100 wins over VCU (0-3 against the ACC this season, which is pretty sweet) and Florida in Gainesville.
Last year’s FSU team featured just one able perimeter scorer — Xavier Rathan-Mayes as a true freshman — once Aaron Thomas went out and signed with an agent. They added two top-50 wing prospects this offseason, and both have panned out. Freshmen Dwayne Bacon and Malik Beasley have paired with Rathan-Mayes to create a dynamic, athletic perimeter attack, flying down the court (their adjusted pace of 74.2 possessions per 40 is top-20 in the country) to attack the rim area and either finish or get fouled. Their defense — the stingiest FSU D since the ACC title team — is forcing turnovers on almost a fifth of possessions faced, and the ‘Noles get their fast break jollies from those and the abundance of blocks (10.6% of shots, 107th nationally) and defensive boards (72.3%) steadily supplied by Hamilton’s usual crew of experienced bigs (7’3” Boris Bojanovsky and 6’8” Montee Brandon are seniors and 6’9” Jarquez Smith is a junior).
The good news is this: we don’t turn the ball over much (14.6%, 1oth nationally) and have maintained our typical feistiness on the offensive glass (not to mention we’ve been great at avoiding stuffs — just 6% of attempts rejected), so transition opportunities will hopefully be hard to come by for FSU.
In addition, success against the Pack Line usually comes from adroit ball movement and great three point shooting, neither of which are strong suits of this Seminole squad. FSU doesn’t take (30.8% of their shots are threes, which places them in the bottom quarter nationally) or make (they’re at 32.7% as a team and only Beasley qualifies as a shooter from their go-to trio) many threes, and everyone other than Rathan-Mayes (5.6 apg, 32.5% assist rate) is a black hole once they make the catch. Teams that rely on a lot of isos against us traditionally end up in a morass of contested twos and wasted possessions.
AG’s platoonmates will be key tomorrow. The first (as advocated by @WahooBasketball on The Hard Hedge this week) is Mike Tobey, the Virginia big best suited to fighting FSU’s size and physicality on the interior. Tobey’s having a little bit of an early thaw (double figures in our last three wins and a whopping 43 points in 52 minutes in those games), and it’s no secret that we’re better when he’s engaged. Tobey may not look imposing and may occasionally do things that don’t look like basketball, but the numbers have always promoted his rebounding (21% DREB, 14.7% OREB this year) and he can grab a board in traffic, protects the rim just by virtue of his 7’0” presence, and can provide a quick burst on offense when things go south.
The second player is Isaiah, with a mind that he’s someone who can switch on to FSU’s speedy wings and hedge aggressively against all of the ball screens we’re sure to see. Wilkins has been just so-so as a defensive rebounder (three in his last 34 minutes on the court, 15.8% for the season — 0.7% higher than Devon, for example), but his speediness will leave us less vulnerable to Dwayne Bacon pigging out in the paint unimpeded. We’re going to need both of these guys to play well.
The ‘Noles are deep — nine guys average double-digit minutes and 7’4” freshman Chris Koumadje usually at least plays — and athletic. We’ll need to take care of the ball, compete on the backboards, and make FSU grind out possessions in the half court where there’s less freedom for their guards to create. We’ll also need to shake off this inexplicable offensive malaise that has stowed away on our bus this season. I don’t have an answer for how to play better on the road, but it needs to happen regardless of the opponent if we’re to find success in a suddenly pretty hairy ACC.
Verdict:
I don’t think FSU will go as quietly as they have in recent meetings, but this set of Seminoles might still be a year away from making real noise. If — and it’s a very, very big if — we can reign FSU in to a half court game, hold them to one shot, and keep Rathan-Mayes from living in the lane, we should be in good shape to escape Florida with a win. If FSU gets XRM into the lane as frequently as Miami did Angel Rodriguez, there will be trouble ahead. I’m calling a narrow win.
