12/2/2022 basketball Edit

Notes: FSU hoops opens ACC play at Virginia

Sophomore guard Jalen Warley is shooting just 30.6 percent from the floor. (Mike Olivella)

Bob Ferrante • TheOsceola

Editor

Florida State (1-8) opens its ACC schedule at No. 3 Virginia (6-0) on Saturday at 2 p.m. (ESPN2) in what is the second matchup with a top-5 team this week.

The Cavaliers are very efficient on offense. They shot 50 percent from the floor, 45 percent from 3-point range and are 72 percent from the free-throw line. Virginia has only 57 turnovers, 25 fewer than opponents.

“This is a new Virginia,” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said. “They are scoring at a much higher clip. They’ve got more of a free-flowing offense. The strength of their team is in their three perimeter players. They’re not running as much of a slow pace as they have in the past.”

Virginia is fourth in the nation in offensive efficiency. That as well as a difficult matchup zone defense and the Cavaliers’ ability to force turnovers, makes the matchup a tough one. Virginia has forced 46 steals (7.6 per game).

“They've been known in the past to be extremely patient,” Hamilton said. “Possessions become more and more important. Now they are a little higher possession team than what they’ve been in the past. We definitely need to take care of the ball better.”

Virginia is led by 6-3 guard Reece Beekman and 6-4 guard Armaan Franklin, who both average 11.8 points. Kihei Clark also returns as a graduate student and averages 9.5 points and 5 assists.

Baby steps for young Seminoles

The result, a loss to No. 5 Purdue, was expected. But the Seminoles were competitive for the majority of the game. But after cutting the deficit to 59-56, FSU missed seven of eight shots and Purdue was able to sustain a sizable lead the rest of the way.

“I thought we showed that we’re making progress buying in to the level of energy that we have to play with on offense and defense,” Hamilton said. “There were times in the first half where I thought that we actually were playing the Florida State basketball that we've been accustomed to playing. We hit a point in the second half I thought where I had to give some guys some breaks. …

“We probably played about 33, 34 minutes the way we like to play. But the challenge is that it's been hard to sustain that effort for 40 minutes. We’re going to have to be able to sustain 40 minutes of that same level of play. And that's probably been our biggest challenge of being able to maintain that energy at the highest level that we've been accustomed to playing at.

Warley's offensive struggles

Sophomore guard Jalen Warley has struggled in the first nine games, shooting just 11 of 36 (30.6 percent) from the floor. He is 1 of 8 from 3-point range and has made just 56.7 percent of his free-throw attempts.

Against Purdue, Warley was 0 for 5 from the floor although he did have six assists (against two turnovers) and two steals.

“He had five really, really good shots,” Hamilton said. “If he'd made the 3 and those layups that he missed, we probably would be having a different conversation. Jalen is giving us a tremendous push on the offensive end and his defense has been basically pretty good with a couple of missed defensive assignments here and there.

“Obviously, he needs to improve his shooting. And we encouraged him to be more aggressive and play within his skill set. And I think he’s doing that with the exception of the ball just isn’t falling for him. … He’s checking the boxes in a lot of other areas. He just hasn’t gotten his offensive game going.”