Freshman Cleveland hits game-winner, lifts Seminoles past BU in overtime

Freshman Matthew Cleveland was playing in his first overtime game in college basketball, but he settled in nicely to the Seminoles’ tradition of dominance in those contests.

Cleveland scored 17 points Wednesday night, and his put-back basket with 2.1 seconds left in overtime helped a short-handed Florida State men's basketball team fight off Boston University's upset bid with an 81-80 win.

Cleveland also came up with a big defensive play to seal the win. Florida State has now won 12 consecutive overtime games, which is a new college basketball record.

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Cleveland scored 14 in the second half and overtime, and he grabbed seven rebounds off the bench. Caleb Mills also scored 17 for the Seminoles (5-1), who were missing three key players for most of the game and could never get any separation against BU (4-3).

Senior point guard RayQuan Evans, whose brother passed away over the weekend, did not play. Neither did center Naheem McLeod (ankle), and center Tanor Ngom played less than nine minutes due to a strained muscle.

"Our guys had to regroup," FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said. "We had to kind of change our game plan on the fly. And we played against an experienced team that was executing very well. ... Under those circumstances, I was very pleased that we were able to come away with a victory."

Terriers sophomore Anthony Morales made the first two foul shots of his career to bring Boston U within 71-68 with seconds left in regulation.

After Florida State's Anthony Polite missed badly on the front end of a one-and-one, Morales took the rebound, dribbled the length of the floor and buried a 3-pointer at the buzzer to force overtime.

Javante McCoy and Sukhmail Mathon each made two foul shots and Boston U led 75-71. With an 80-79 lead, in successive possessions, McCoy turned it over and Morales missed a 3 with 15 seconds left to set up the Seminoles.

Mills drove right and put up a shot attempt that went over the rim, which Cleveland collected. After a timeout and having to go the length of the floor, the Terriers' inbounds pass was intercepted at half court.

"I didn't see any indecision on his part. He's an extremely confident youngster with a high motor," Hamilton said of Cleveland's performance. "And he did every little thing that we knew he was capable of doing in order to give ourselves a victory."

McCoy scored 22 for Boston University.

Ethan Brittain-Watts's three-point play with 8:51 before halftime capped a 10-0 Terriers run to give them their first lead at 20-18. Later, a 10-5 run to close the half brought BU to within 37-35 at intermission.

Florida State heads to West Lafayette, Ind., to play No. 3-ranked Purdue on Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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