Florida State men's basketball: Seminoles hold onto 73-72 victory over Notre Dame
Florida State men’s basketball may finally be turning a corner.
The Seminoles defeated Notre Dame 73-72 after the Irish turned the ball over with 6.7 seconds left and a chance to take the lead in an ACC matchup Wednesday night at Donald L. Tucker Civic Center.
Matthew Cleveland recorded a double-double with 19 points and 12 rebounds in the victory for FSU (4-10, 2-1 ACC). The Seminoles have now won three of their last four, following a 1-7 start. Notre Dame (7-5, 0-2) is just 2-5 in its last seven games following a 5-0 start.
The Seminoles improved to 9-5 against Notre Dame all-time and 7-0 all-time in Tallahassee.
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Cleveland scored 10 points in the second half, as the Seminoles overcame an early 11-point deficit, as well as a one-point disadvantage at halftime.
With his third straight double-double, Cleveland became the first Seminole since Corey Louis (1995) to have one in three straight games. He's had four of them in the last five games.
"That's really cool. That's history," Cleveland said.
Cameron Cohren added a new career-high 18 points and seven rebounds, while Caleb Mills also had 18 points for the Seminoles.
Cohren, who had 10 points in the first half, beat his career-high of 15 points set against Louisville (Dec. 10).
JJ Starling led the Irish with 20 points, while Cormac Ryan had 17 and Nate Laszewski added 12 points.
Center Naheem McLeod did not appear in the game for the Seminoles. He played 11 minutes against St. John’s. Walk-on Sola Adebisi earned playing time in the first half in McLeod’s absence.
Here are three takeaways from tonight’s victory for the Seminoles.
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Coming off a career-high of 23 points in a loss to St. John’s on Dec. 17, Cleveland kept up his scoring streak with 19 points and 12 rebounds.
Cleveland connected on a new career-high of three 3-pointers for the Seminoles. He hit a pair of three’s early in the second half to push the FSU lead to a game-high eight points after trailing by one at the half.
The 12 rebounds were one off his career-high of 13 he also recorded against St. John’s.
Cleveland has averaged 17.5 points and 10.8 rebounds since Cam'Ron Fletcher went down with a season-ending injury vs. Virginia (Dec. 3).
"Well, there's no doubt when we lost Cam Fletcher, he automatically just turned into another guy," FSU head coach Leonard Hamilton said. "He realized he had the feeling. He's had three straight double-doubles.
"But Matt's staying focused, especially when he'll be on one side of the floor, then rebound the ball on the other side, that's the focus, that's determination, that's grit. And so he inspires the other guys because of the effort he's giving."
Closing out
Despite playing heavy minutes, something that is not a norm under head coach Leonard Hamilton, the Seminoles were able to close out the victory.
All five starters for the Seminoles played over 30 minutes. Mills led the way playing 39 minutes, while Darin Green Jr. played 38.
Hamilton said that it's the first time in his career he believes he's had five players play over 30 minutes.
"It is very challenging to play that many minutes with what we're requiring them to do," Hamilton said. "We're not playing half-court, we're not picking up at the top of the key like most teams. We're picking them up at 94 feet. Most teams don't switch one through five as we do."
Cleveland (35), Jalen Warley (34) and Cohren (31) also crossed the 30-minute plateau. No one from the bench played for more than eight minutes.
FSU finished 12-of-14 shooting from the free throw line, including going 6 of 8 shooting in the second half.
Seminoles withstand an early barrage
After FSU pulled ahead with its biggest lead of the first half at 10-3, the Irish came storming back, catching fire from the field.
Notre Dame connected on 10 of its first 12 shots, including shooting 5-of-6 from 3-point range. An 11-0 run catapulted the Irish to a 31-20 lead.
FSU withstood the early barrage and was able to cut the lead down to just a point at halftime.
"Just our energy," Cleveland said on what changed compared to earlier in the season. "We call those dips. So we know if we kept playing defense, it would lead to the offensive end. We just locked in on defense and strung together stops."
Up next:
Florida State returns to action on New Years Eve on the road against No. 14 Duke at 1 p.m. The Seminoles then host Georgia Tech at 2 p.m. on Jan. 7. The game against the Yellow Jackets will mark the final game of a 16-game suspension for Baba Miller.
Reach Ehsan Kassim at ekassim@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @Ehsan_Kassim. You can also follow our coverage on Facebook (NoleSports) and Instagram (tlhnolesports).
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FSU men's basketball: Seminoles hold onto 73-72 victory over Notre Dame
