Florida State (14-13, 8-8) completes the season series against the Clemson Tigers (19-8, 9-7), with both teams looking to separate in the ACC standings. There is. On Saturday night, Clemson University won four of five games and FSU opened as a 10-point underdog. Clemson University led by as many as 16 points, but the Seminoles never came back. Florida State’s shooting was poor in the second half, but they couldn’t overcome a solid defense, and Clemson pulled away with four minutes remaining. Jameel Watkins led the way with 18 points, but only two other teammates scored in double figures. The Seminoles needed to win this game to stay in their group in the ACC standings, but this loss dropped them to the bottom half of the league.
first half:
Darrin Green Jr. returned to the starting lineup along with Cam Coren, giving the Seminoles even more momentum. Having the Charlotte native back on the floor had an immediate effect, stretching the floor for Bubba Miller for an open 3 on the first possession of the game. But Florida State’s offense disappeared from there. They went more than two minutes without scoring, but committed three turnovers and allowed Clemson to score four early points in the paint. It took one-man band Jameel Watkins to wreak havoc on the defensive end by recording a steal and going coast-to-coast for a layup to bring the game to one point. There were four turnovers for each team at the 16-and-under timeout, with FSU leading 7-4 by the pedestrians.
After intermission, the teams traded buckets in the paint. Jameel Watkins continued to get close to the rim, but Florida State consistently forced Clemson off the 3-point line and easily scored inside on Tigers and Florida State fouls. The Seminoles then started hacking and chucking threes, which resulted in long rebounds and very few points. Since Bubba Miller’s first deep ball, FSU went 0-for-5 with three goals and felt Clemson was going to try to shoot from beyond the arc. In addition to terrible 3-point shooting, Florida State reverted to its old ways of committing too many fouls early in the game. The Seminoles committed five fouls within the first seven minutes of the game, and the charity stripe gave Clemson an early six-point advantage. The Tigers, a 12-and-under team, led 10-2 with three and a half minutes remaining and took a 14-9 advantage into the timeout. Florida State’s offense looked completely stagnant and out of ideas, with Jameel Watkins taking an early break.
Florida State was held scoreless for over three minutes, and the Tigers extended their lead. Starting with another basket in the paint, CU’s lead grew to seven as they shot over 50 percent from the field. When the match started to get out of hand, Primo Spears answered the call. He hit a deep three from the wing and hit a strong come-from-behind jumper in the paint before scoring five points on consecutive possessions. Unfortunately, the spark from the bench didn’t ignite all of the players. Clemson improved to 5-0 and advanced to the 8-under league with a record of 24-18. The Tigers were still shooting a respectable 7-13 from the field, including half of their points in the paint.
After that, the game went back and forth, with each team committing turnovers and fouls, slowing down the pace of play. Joe Girard went to the line to give the Tigers a seven-point lead, but Jameel Watkins responded by drawing a foul and going 2-2 from the line on the ensuing possession. Throughout the first half, Florida State struggled to get quality possession on offense, committing nine turnovers and recording three blocked shots in the first 15 minutes of the first half. Clemson scored more in transition with a final block from Jameel Watkins and a layup to push the lead back to seven points. Just as the game was starting to slip away from the Seminoles again, Primo Spears was clutch again. He picked up two fouls on back-to-back possessions, cutting the Clemson lead to four points and entering the under-4 TV timeout.
Neither team scored in the first minute after intermission, but Clemson made a 3 to take a 33-26 lead. Florida State faltered again, missing 7 of 8 points until Jameel Watkins buried his head and headed into the cup game with a two-point lead. FSU was happy going into the half down seven, but Chase Hunter hit a three as time expired, giving the Tigers a 10-point lead at halftime. It was a predictable first half for Florida State, as foul trouble, poor outside shooting and a lack of secondary scoring were themes of the first half. Florida State trailed Downtown 2-10 at the half, but did a good job of holding Clemson to 3-9. But foul play made the difference in the first half, with Clemson going 13-for-14 from the line to Florida State’s 6-for-6. The Seminoles stayed close after CU nearly pulled away multiple times, but at the end of the day, they deserved to be down at the break.
Latter half:
Florida State started the second half the same way it started the first half with a basket from Bubba Miller. This time, however, he cut Clemson’s lead to eight points with an impressive spin move and dunk. The Seminoles did a great job defensively to start the first half and held the Tigers scoreless for over two minutes of the second half. At the 18:00 mark, Watkins drove to the rim and drew P.J. Hall’s third foul, making it 1-2 at the line. Florida State was unable to capitalize on the momentum, and the Tigers quickly scored four points to take their largest lead of the night. Watkins slowed down the rush relatively with a tough layup, but Joe Girard hit back-to-back threes from the same spot on the wing, giving Clemson a 13-point lead going into the U-16 timeout. It felt like a lot for FSU to finally have a consistent offense, but the Tigers did a great job of setting up their offense quickly and took advantage of the Syracuse transfer.
Despite Jalen Worley’s layup after a television timeout, Florida State was unable to slow down the Tigers. After a circus shot, Chase Hunter converted an and-1, giving the Tigers their largest lead of the night at 14 points. After a minute with neither team scoring, Clemson made another transition layup, bringing the total to 24 points in the paint. Jameel Watkins hit a three from the top of the key to seal the game and cut the lead to 13 points, but FSU threw the ball to the bench on the ensuing possession, halting any momentum for the U-12 team. . Eight of the Tigers’ 15 second-half points came in the paint despite shooting less than 50 percent to start the second half.
With the score 53-40, Florida State needed a quick attack and quickly scored on a Cam Koren dunk. Of course, they missed the free throw, but FSU forced a shot clock violation on the next possession and started to come back to life. Chandler Jackson hit a layup, but the momentum didn’t last long as Clemson grabbed an offensive rebound on Joe Girard’s missed three and made up for it with another triple shortly after, giving Clemson 13 points. gave the lead. At 8:00, FSU found themselves trailing by 12 points, which felt like a 20-point lead. Florida State shot a dismal 36% from the field and didn’t seem to have enough offense to mount a significant comeback.
Primo Spears got into the game, knocking in a tough basket to turn the tide and an inside pass to Kam Koren to cut the lead to eight points. After FSU changed to a 1-3-1 zone and forced a turnover on Clemson, Bubba Miller hit a three to cut the lead to five points and extend the Seminole lead to 9-0. After Chase Hunter made a transition dunk, Jameel Watkins pounded the ball inside and went to the line, making both from the stripe to keep the game within five points. The key turnaround for the Seminoles was on defense, as Leonard Hamilton switched to zone and stagnated the Tiger offense. But as soon as they got back to man, P.J. Hall brought Jalen Gainey to school, pounding in buckets and fouls. It looked like this might finally be enough to end the game, but Jameel Watkins’ clock wasn’t showing it that way. He went back inside and scored a right to keep the game within two points. Clemson led 64-57 at the 4-and-under timeout, but even after Florida State led 13-6 with 4:51 left, FSU needed to make stops and score to make it a game. there were.
Bodies hit the floor and grabbed loose rebounds, and the game became unstable as each team began pounding the ball inside. Florida State did a valiant job making it difficult for Clemson’s offense with deflections and steals, but they had nothing to show for it. The lead remained at seven points, and with two minutes to go, Worley got a free point on a foul on Joe Girard, who made 94 percent of his free throw shooting, giving the Tigers a 66-57 lead. Nothing happened for Florida State on the ensuing offensive possession, with Chase Hunter getting two feet in the paint before making a clean pass to P.J. Hall, giving the big man an easy layup to put the game in their hands. I put it out of reach.
Box score and points:
- Saturday seemed especially difficult as Florida State’s offense had another poor game. FSU shot an abysmal 38% from the floor and even worse, 22% from three. Even when the Seminoles closed the gap in the second half, it never felt like their offense could pull them back into the game. Jameel Watkins led FSU as usual, but had an inefficient night that the Seminoles couldn’t overcome. Primo Spears showed small sparks throughout the game, but he played just 21 minutes tonight and shot below 50%.
- Florida State fought hard on defense throughout the game, limiting Clemson to 40% shooting in the second half, but Joe Girard made timely threes to stop each of them. The Syracuse transfer scored six straight points midway through the second half to give Clemson its largest lead. Clemson was only 1-11 from downtown in the second half, but those big shots sucked the wind out of Florida State.
- If there was one good thing about the night, it was that Florida State brought in 15 offensive rebounds for an offensive rebound percentage of 43%. Cam Koren has been an impact since taking the starting role, recording five ORs in 24 minutes of play.
Future prospects:
Florida State will play the North Carolina State Wolfpack at home in the Tips at Tuck at 9 p.m. The Wolfpack has been inconsistent lately, going 2-2 in their last four games.
