Florida State, picked fifth by the sports goofs at the ACC Tip-Off, is out to a ghastly 1-8 start, the one win being a nine-point win over Mercer two weeks ago.
The losses aren’t necessarily a murderer’s row – Stetson, Central Florida, Troy, Florida, Siena, Stanford, Nebraska, Purdue.
There’s one NCAA Tournament team among those, the final one, Purdue.
But look at that one. Purdue, fresh off a 19-point beatdown of Duke over the weekend, won by 10, and it was a three-point game inside of seven minutes to go.
The preseason vote was based on the faith that Leonard Hamilton just reloads every year, but that’s forgetting that FSU was 17-14 last year, one of the wins a 64-63 heartbreaker for Virginia in JPJ, on a 40-foot swish at the buzzer by Matthew Cleveland that is still echoing deep in the hearts and souls of the UVA fans who were there.
I’ve never heard 15,000 people go that quiet that quickly.
Virginia (6-0) comes in ranked third after a nice come-from-behind win at Michigan in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge on Tuesday, after a pair of wins over #6 Baylor and #16 Illinois two weeks ago in Vegas.
This one, on paper, should be a walkover for the ‘Hoos.
Buyer beware.
The rotation
The point guard, Caleb Mills, a Houston transfer, is big (6’5”) and athletic, and averages 12.3 points and 3.1 assists per game, shooting 42.7 percent from the floor, but just has three made threes this season.
His backcourtmate, Darin Green Jr., a Central Florida transfer, is the team’s leading scorer, at 12.7 points per game, and is a solid perimeter shooter (41.8 percent from three).
Cleveland, a 6’7” sophomore, starts at the three, an averages 12.3 points per game, shooting 28.6 percent from three and 46.6 percent overall from the floor.
The bigs are 6’7” power forward Cam’Ron Fletcher (11.8 ppg, 7.6 rebs/g, 41.2% FG) and 7’4” sophomore Naheem McLeod (3.4 ppg. 3.6 rebs/g), who only averages 16.3 minutes per game.
Hamilton will go 10 deep with his rotation, which is par for the course with how he uses his roster.
The bench only scored five points on 1-of-15 shooting from the field in 62 minutes of floor time in the loss to Purdue, so, maybe that’s the issue for Hamilton this year.
He’s still going with numbers in terms of playing time, but maybe the depth isn’t what it he’s used to having.
Analytics
Florida State, per KenPom.com, scores 1.021 points per possession (152nd nationally) and allows 1.017 points per possession (173rd).
The ‘Noles rank 57th in tempo (70.8 possessions per game).
The relevant numbers for Virginia: 1.164 PPP (fourth) on offense, 0.93 PPP (19th) on defense, 60.5 possessions per game (361st).
Forecast
- KenPom: Virginia 77-57, 97% win probability
- Bart Torvik: Virginia 73-56, 95% win probability
- ESPN BPI: Virginia +14.9, 92.1% win probability
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Chris Graham
