The Florida State men's basketball team will be back home -- finally -- tonight when it plays host to Louisville at the Tucker Center (8 p.m. ET, ESPNU).
It has been since Dec. 15 that the Seminoles, who are coming off a blowout loss at Wake Forest, have played in front of their home fans.
They are currently 7-5 overall and 1-2 in the ACC. If they're going to even their record in conference, they will obviously have to play, and shoot, much better than they did in the 75-54 loss to the Demon Deacons on Tuesday night.
"It appears psychologically that maybe we're relying on some of our veterans to carry some of the load a little bit more, and that's not how this team has been built over the years," FSU head coach Leonard Hamilton said. "We're not quite where we need to be from a maturity standpoint. But I think as we move forward, we've tried to identify those things and hopefully we'll be a little bit more consistent."
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In years past, Hamilton pointed out, the Seminoles never tired to rely on just one, two or even three guys to go get buckets. The system dictated whoever had the best matchup was Option No. 1.
"The go-to guy is the open guy," Hamilton would say repeatedly.
Through 12 games this season, though, the win-by-committee approach hasn't done nearly as much winning as FSU fans have become accustomed to.
Part of that is because the team is full of freshmen and first-year players, guys who are still learning to adapt to the realities of college basketball. On both ends of the court.
And part of that is because the Seminoles just haven't been able to shoot consistently.
Florida State shot just 24 percent from the floor in the loss to Wake Forest. And in the home loss in early December to Syracuse, the Seminoles were a staggering 4-of-30 from 3-point range.
In their three ACC games to date, FSU has connected on just 14 of 70 shots from 3-point range (a cool 20 percent from beyond the arc).
"I'd say the majority of our shots have been good looks," Hamilton said on Friday. "As coaches, you try to find that magic word, that scheme, you look for those things to see how can I improve? Is there something consistent?
"Other than, the ball is not going in, that's been pretty consistent."
Hamilton pointed out again how he thinks the team's lack of maturity has been a hindrance.
He said he wasn't trying to make excuses, but that with more rotation players in their first season than in their third or fourth seasons, it's been a difficult adjustment at times to make those experienced, winning-type plays that FSU has excelled at in recent years.
"I just think that in the past we've seemed to be a little more relaxed in those stressful situations than we have this year," he said. "It just seems we're still a little more unsure on how to exactly execute our system both offensively and defensively."
The veteran head coach hopes that gets figured out very soon. Starting tonight with a Louisville team that is currently 4-0 in the ACC (10-4 overall).
In fact, while it should be a benefit for the Seminoles to finally be back home for conference play, it has worked out that the next two games are against teams -- Louisville and Miami -- who are tied atop the ACC standings with 4-0 records.
"You'd like to hope that playing at home gives you a little bit of an edge," Hamilton said. "But you've still got to go out and really, really do the job."
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