Virginia Tech's hot three-point shooting gives Florida State another tough loss
Back-to-back losses to the bottom two teams in the ACC may put Florida State on a precarious trajectory.
A 85-72 loss to Virginia Tech (11-10, 3-7 ACC) at the Civic Center Saturday was the most recent result for the Seminoles (13-7, 6-4 ACC).
Georgia Tech defeated FSU 75-61 Wednesday in Atlanta.
After six straight wins vaulted the Seminoles to No. 1 in the ACC, they are now hovering in the middle of the conference’s standings. In a down year in the ACC, FSU will have to stop the bleeding soon to remain a tournament hopeful.
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The depleted Seminoles struggled without starters Malik Osborne (ankle) and RayQuan Evans (personal reason). Starting guard Caleb Mills (bronchitis) only played three minutes in the first half before sitting out the rest of the game. He did not score. Mills, Osborne and Evans are three of FSU’s top five scorers.
FSU head coach Leonard Hamilton said Mills was not expected to play but made himself available after learning moments before tip-off that Evans would not dress out.
“If you look over the years, we’ve had very few times where we lost three players in a short period of time,” Hamilton said. “But that happens to other teams as well. We’ve been fortunate to have not had to deal with losing basically three starters and happen all at once to where you don’t really have an opportunity to prepare for it.”
Freshmen Matthew Cleveland, Jalen Warley and John Butler were inserted into the starting lineup, joining seniors Anthony Polite and Tanor Ngom. Polite and junior center Naheem McLeod led FSU with 17 and 15 points, respectively.
Polite finished the game despite injuring his right wrist from a fall.
“My wrist is fine,” Polite said. “I’ll be OK. I was just out there fighting.”
With their scorching shooting from the outside, the Hokies did not make matters easy for the Seminoles. Virginia Tech finished 18 of 25 from beyond the arc, sinking several contested three-pointers in the process.
The Hokies left with a win in Tallahassee for the first time in 32 years.
“I’m 100 percent positive that we will,” said Polite on if FSU can return to how it played earlier this month. “It’s still a long season. I don’t think that we’ve played our best yet, but we’ve shown our potential of what we can be. We showed some games where we haven’t played our best.
“But we never got to that point where everybody on the team showcased what they can do at the same time. So I believe the ceiling for this team is still very high.”
On the money
Hunter Cattoor and Sean Padulla went nuclear.
The Virginia Tech guards went 9 of 12 and 6 of 7 from deep, respectively. Padulla connected on his first six three-pointers, while Cattoor added another six in the second half. Cattoor's nine three-pointers tied a school record.
The Seminoles switching on every ball screen often created space for Hokie shooters.
“We’ve been trying to switch one through five,” Hamilton said. I’m not sure we can do that with Naheem McLeod. So we are going to have to make adjustments to another defensive system.”
Padulla’s production came as a surprise. He entered the contest averaging three points per game and had only 12 three-pointers on the season. He finished with 20 points.
Cattoor’s hot hand helped Virginia Tech finish FSU in the second half. The Seminoles trailed 62-60 with 7:25 remaining. Then the Hokies went on a 14-0 run that included four Cattoor three-pointers. He led all scorers with 27 points.
“That’s when I thought fatigue set in,” Hamilton said about that 14-0 run. “We just didn’t have enough energy there to play the way we’ve been accustomed to playing. When they scored four threes and a two, I thought that broke our back.”
FSU struggled to defend the three at Georgia Tech, particularly in the early going. The Yellow Jackets recorded nine three-pointers in the first half.
“We’ve been accustomed to rotating players every four or five minutes,” Hamilton said. “Now we are extending guys seven, eight straight minutes and trying to play at the same level of energy that we’ve been accustomed to playing with.
“That caught up with us there during that period. We tried to keep them as fresh as possible. But that’s why the way that we play, the style we play, sometimes it’s difficult to adjust like this.
“But that’s the nature of college basketball. We’ve got to find a way to overcome it and make sure we make the necessary adjustments.”
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Up Next
FSU still has plenty of time to regroup and recover.
The Seminoles will first look to rebound at Clemson (11-9, 3-6 ACC) at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida State falls 85-72 to Virginia Tech in ACC men's basketball
