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Clark: FSU basketball program continues to surprise, impress

I should know better by this point. I really should.

On Friday afternoon, I was a guest on a Louisville sports talk radio show. The hosts wanted to talk about the No. 18 Florida State men's basketball team and its upcoming game against the No. 7 Louisville Cardinals.

And I'll be honest, dear reader: I didn't really think the Seminoles had much of a chance.

Not because Louisville is unbeatable. Obviously, it isn't. And not because FSU was overmatched. Obviously it wasn't.

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Devin Vassell scored 14 points in Florida State's upset win over Louisville on Saturday.
Devin Vassell scored 14 points in Florida State's upset win over Louisville on Saturday. (The USA Today)

But winning on the road in this conference is never easy, and I wasn't sure if junior shooting guard M.J. Walker was going to play (turns out he did). And Louisville, which had played just once in the previous two weeks, was coming off a bitter overtime loss to in-state rival Kentucky.

I just assumed the Cardinals and their crowd would be so hungry, so angry, so desperate for a Top 20 win on Saturday that the depleted Seminoles, who were also without freshman center Balsa Koprivica, would have a hard time overcoming that energy inside the KFC Yum! Center.

I was wrong. Really wrong.

And you'd think by now I would have learned my lesson.

Florida State has been to three NCAA Tournaments in a row, been to two straight Sweet 16s, and is now 13-2 on the season (3-1 in the ACC) ... one year after losing SIX pivotal players from its primary rotation.

What more does this program have to show us before wins at Louisville stop becoming a huge surprise?

I asked one of Saturday's heroes, the aforementioned M.J. Walker, what he thinks about the perception of Florida State basketball these days.

"I don't think we necessarily get the respect we deserve," he said, "but that's fine with us. We just focus on us anyway, and what we need to do to get better. We try not to worry what people say. We hear it. We know what they're saying, but we know what we can control: And that's just to get better every day."

Walker has never been better than he was on Saturday.

The junior guard, who missed Tuesday's game against Georgia Tech with a hip injury, was a game-time decision against the Cardinals. He said FSU head coach Leonard Hamilton asked him how he was feeling during warmups.

Walker told him he was feeling better, but admitted he wasn't sure how his hip was going to react because he hadn't gone full-speed yet. He also knew that he couldn't just tell Hamilton he was going to, "try to play." He had to tell him he could play.

So he did.

And then he went out and played incredibly well.

Coming off the bench for the first time since his freshman season, Walker scored 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting from the floor, including 5-of-7 from 3-point range. It was one point off a career-high.

I joked with him afterward that putting up 23 off the bench might just mean he goes right back there again on Wednesday against Wake Forest.

After all, why mess with what works?

"I don't know, man," Walker said with a laugh. "I thought it was pretty cool seeing my guys out there handling business (to start the game). It kind of sent me back to freshman year and those jitters coming off the bench and staying ready.

"I don't know. He might stick with it."

We'll see.

What Hamilton will definitely stick with is the approach of playing a whole bunch of players and trying to win by committee.

On Saturday, his top three guards -- Trent Forrest, Devin Vassell and Walker -- combined for 57 points.

That's not the norm for this program in recent years; the scoring is typically spread out more evenly. But the beauty of what Hamilton has built is that these Seminoles can beat you in a number of different ways. With a number of different people.

And if the Seminoles shoot 3-pointers like they did on Saturday -- 11-of-23 from deep -- they can beat just about anyone in the country.

Not that any of us should be surprised by that.

It's been happening for quite a while.

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Discuss the game with fans on Warchant's Seminole Hoops message board.

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