FSU vs. Miami: Game thread, how to watch, notes, odds

Jan 24, 2023 - 10:45 PM

Florida State Seminoles basketball, currently riding a two-game win streak, will face off against rival Miami tonight inside the Donald L. Tucker Center in Tallahassee.

FSU (7-13, 5-4 ACC) is coming off a road trip that saw wins vs. both the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Pittsburgh Panthers.

“To win two games in a row on the road, means that we are maturing, we’re making some progress,” head coach Leonard Hamilton said after the Seminoles’ win over the Panthers. “I think we are growing in our culture and it’s taken some losses to probably get our attention as to how hard you got to play at this level to be successful. How you got to execute, how we got to create for each other.”

No. 20 Miami (15-4, 6-3 ACC) has struggled to find consistency on the court in January after a 13-1 start to the season, going 3-2 in the early weeks of 2023.

The Hurricanes most recently dropped a back-and-forth matchup to the Duke Blue Devils, with Miami missing going 0-for-3 then subsequently turning the ball over on its final two possessions of the game.

“I thought the first half was pretty well played by both teams, and the result was a 38‐38 tie,” Hurricanes head coach Jim Larrañaga said. “I thought we got out of character in the second half. We were taking way too many difficult shots, no assists, everything off the bounce, and I think that led to really good defense by Duke’s team and some blocked shots.”

“So, was it their size or was it the Duke name that bothered us? Was it the crowd? Was it the energy level that was in the gym, sometimes your adrenaline is what creates the problem for you because you can’t calm down and just make a shot.”

Florida State and Miami last faced off just over a year ago to the day, meeting in Coral Gables on January 22, 2022 — a 61-60 win for the Seminoles.

Some additional game notes, via FSU Sports Info:

FLORIDA STATE VS. MIAMI – THE LAST GAME

Caleb Mills scored a team-high 16 points while Anthony Polite scored 15. The win gave Florida State a two-game regular season sweep of the Hurricanes for the fourth consecutive season. The Seminoles have won nine straight games against the Hurricanes, including both ends of the series in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. The Seminoles’ victory also marks Florida State’s sixth straight win and fifth straight ACC win. The streak began with a 79-70 victory over Louisville on January 8. In a near mirror-image contest, Florida State led 43-19 at halftime before the Hurricanes turned it around and outscored the Seminoles 41-18 in the second half. In a game without any lead changes, the Seminoles gained their second consecutive one-point win over Miami. In the first meeting between the two teams, Florida State’s RayQuan Evans made two free throws with 0.8 seconds left to play to give the Seminoles a 65-64 win. In Florida State’s second win, Florida State scored the first basket of Saturday’s game on a 3-point shot by Evans for a quick 3-0 advantage.

CLEVELAND’S SCORING AND REBOUNDING IMPROVEMENTS

All-ACC candidate Mathew Cleveland enters Tuesday’s game against Miami in the conference’s top 20 for overall scoring (14.3 ppg) and in the top 10 for overall rebounding (8.1 rpg). In ACC games only, Cleveland is ranked 14th in scoring (15.0 ppg) and third in rebounding (10.9 rpg). His statistics across the board in both overall games and in ACC games only are significantly improved this season as compared to his freshman season, when he became the fourth consecutive Seminole player to earn ACC Sixth Man of the Year honors

FLORIDA STATE’S RECENT ACC SUCCESS AT THE TUCKER CENTER

With its 3-1 record at home in ACC play this season, Florida State is 52-7 in ACC play at the Donald L. Tucker Center in the last seven seasons. The Seminoles’ winning percentage of nearly 90 percent in conference play since the start of the 2016-17 season has made the Tucker Center one of the toughest places to play for ACC opponents. Florida State has lost only seven ACC home games since the start of the 2016-17 ACC schedule through the Seminoles’ game against nationally ranked Virginia on January 14, 2023. To extrapolate Florida State’s winning ways even further, the Seminoles won their final two ACC home games of the 2015-16 season against Notre Dame (77-56 on February 27, 2016) and Syracuse (78-73 on March 5, 2016) to raise their recent conference record at home to 54-7 for a winning percentage of .885 percent).

MILLS ENTERS TUESDAY’S GAME AGAINST MIAMI LOOKING TO EXTEND DOUBLE-FIGURE SCORING STREAK

Junior Caleb Mills enters Tuesday’s game against Miami looking to extend to 11 his consecutive games streak of scoring in double figures. He has scored in double-figures in each of Florida State’s games since December 10 against Louisville (16 points) and is averaging 12.4 points (124 total points scored) in that stretch of 10 games.

HAMILTON ON NAISMITH HALL OF FAME BALLOT

Florida State’s Leonard Hamilton, the fifth all-time winningest coach in ACC history, is on the ballot for enshrinement into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The Seminoles’ head coach won his 600th career game as he directed his Seminoles to their 75-64 win over Georgia Tech on January 7, 2023. In addition to the victory being his 600th overall coaching win, the win was his 400th at Florida State, making him only the fifth coach in ACC history to win 400 games as an ACC coach. Hamilton is one of just 16 active collegiate coaches with at least 600 career victories.