Florida State, up 18 at halftime, erased all doubt with a 34-point third quarter, on its way to a 101-68 rout of Virginia on Thursday at JPJ.
The Cavaliers (12-12, 4-8 ACC) had been playing well of late, notching road wins at Clemson, Virginia Tech and Syracuse, and being competitive in losses against a trio of Top 25 teams (Duke, NC State, Georgia Tech).
This one, with another Top 25 team, was never a game – FSU, ranked 22nd, jumped out to an 11-0 lead, was up 17 at the end of one quarter, 18 at halftime, and it was 83-43 at the end of three.
“To give up 101 points in our own gym is not acceptable. We apologize to the fans. I think we just were rattled. We missed a lot of shots, and I think once we couldn’t score, especially early, it started to get in our heads. We started second-guessing ourselves,” UVA coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton said afterward.
It wasn’t just missed shots, though. Virginia was 3-of-18 (16.7 percent) from the floor in the first quarter, but was also plagued by seven turnovers.
The ‘Hoos had 18 turnovers for the game, and the ‘Noles (19-4, 9-2 ACC) had a 25-8 advantage in points off turnovers.
The defense wasn’t good – FSU shot 52.0 percent for the game, and made 10 threes (10-of-26, 38.5 percent) and 21 shots at the rim (21-of-33).
Kymora Johnson and Paris Clark each had 16 points to lead the Cavaliers. Johnson, the sophomore five-star guard, also had six assists, but with five turnovers.
Freshman Breona Hurd had 14 points and eight rebounds.
Grad senior Latasha Lattimore had a quiet eight points (4-of-15 FG) and five rebounds, breaking her streak of nine straight games scoring in double-digits (she’d averaged 17.8 ppg in that stretch).
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Chris Graham
