For the first time in almost two weeks, the Florida State men's basketball team will be playing a home game on Sunday.
And it happens to be a big one.
The No. 17 Seminoles (7-2 overall, 0-1 in the ACC) will try to even their conference record against the Clemson Tigers (5-3 overall, 0-1 in ACC). The game is slated for 2 p.m. and will air on the ACC Network.
Florida State is coming off an 80-64 loss at Indiana on Tuesday in the ACC/Big 10 Challenge. The Hoosiers shot over 55.6 percent from the floor against the Seminoles, who were one of the national leaders in field-goal percentage defense before the game.
CYBER MONDAY EXTENDED: ** Get 50% off a new Warchant subscription **
"We understand a little bit more what our shortcomings are," FSU head coach Leonard Hamilton said. "So now we're going to try to focus to see if we can improve in those areas. It doesn't help that we've got an ACC opponent to figure it out on."
Clemson beat TCU early in the year on a neutral floor and then lost to Colorado by four points. The Tigers also lost at home to Virginia Tech, 67-60, to start the season.
Brad Brownell's team returns only one starter from a year ago, and two of the key veterans expected to be back for 2019-2020 -- junior guard Clyde Trapp and senior forward Jonathan Baehre -- suffered torn ACLs in the preseason.
So the Tigers have a rotation of eight players. At most. With four averaging right around 30 minutes per game.
Meanwhile, FSU has 11 players averaging at least 10 minutes per game.
The Seminoles figure to have an edge in depth and bench production against Clemson. And while they're still trying to find themselves offensively -- they're shooting just 32 percent from 3-point range on the season -- they relied on suffocating defense to come away with three important non-conference wins already this season (over Florida, Tennessee and Purdue).
On Tuesday night, however, they allowed the Hoosiers to score 80 and shoot over 55 percent from the field.
"They play a lot on the perimeter," point guard Anthony Polite said of the Tigers. "We're just going to have to communicate a lot and talk, point and help each other be in the right position at all times.
"It's going to be an ACC game. It's going to be tough. They have a good coaching staff, and obviously we're going to have to prepare well and just execute what the coaches want us to do."
With a win, FSU can get back to .500 in ACC play after dropping the season opener way back on Nov. 6.
"We definitely want to redeem ourselves from the Pitt game," said forward Malik Osborne. "We feel like we're a way better team than we showed (in the season-opening loss to the Panthers). And we're going out there to show it on Sunday."
---------------------------
Discuss the game with fans on Warchant's Seminole Hoops message board.