FSU Basketball Recap: Noles Lose to Pitt For Second Straight Defeat

FSU basketball had another pathetic road showing as they fall 80-66 to the Pitt Panthers for their second straight loss.

The Pitt Panthers are unarguably one of the two worst teams in the ACC, along with Boston College. FSU basketball also had a week off to rest and re-energize before heading to Pittsburgh to take them on. Unfortunately, as is often the case with this team on the road, it didn’t matter. The Seminoles lost 80-66 against a team that had three wins in conference all year.

Sheesh.

Florida State’s defense was primarily the issue, though their offense wasn’t much better. It was just a deflating performance all around. There’s a lot to talk about, so let’s just get to our biggest takeaways from the tough loss.

Zero

That’s how many points Dwayne Bacon had. There’s really not much else to say about his game today. Don’t really want to speculate much, but he didn’t seem very interested in playing.

Bacon finished the day with those zero points, on 0-of-4 shooting, and two turnovers. Further, his defense, which is never good, was somehow even worse today. He was relegated to the bench for long stretches late in both halves.

Weird situation going on with Bake.

FSU’s defense was porous

The Panthers are an okay offensive team, but certainly not a great one. KenPom has them ranked 35th-overall in offensive efficiency. So to see them score 80 points, on 51 percent (!!!) shooting, to go along with 10 three-pointers, was pretty stunning.

The Seminoles did a good job slowing down Pitt’s leading scorer, Michael Young. He finished with 11 points, going 2-for-7 from the floor. However, they allowed whoever Sheldon Jeter is to set a career-high. Jeter scored 29 points on an absolutely astounding 12-for-14 clip. Again. Stunning.

Florida State was going through the motions today. That was made clear with their defense, but we shouldn’t give their offense a pass, either.

FSU’s offense was also porous

5-for-18 from three (one of those being a miracle bank shot by PJ Savoy). 60 percent from the free-throw line (the usual). Leading scorer was held to zero. Third-leading scorer (Xavier Rathan-Mayes) held to 12 points on 12 shots. Nine turnovers (that’s not so bad, I guess).

It would have been great to see Jonathan Isaac step up once he noticed it wasn’t Bake’s night. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. He finished with 11 points on eight attempts. The freshman always lets the game come to him, which is usually a good thing! But sometimes, you need just a little more out of your most talented player.

I hope for Isaac’s sake that he ends up getting drafted by a team with a few 20-point per game scorers on it. Because he’s not the type of player that’s going to get you buckets, and won’t be. At least not for the first few years of his career.

Florida State Seminoles Basketball

The bench had a nice bounce back game

After being mostly irrelevant in the team’s loss to Notre Dame, the bench had a solid outing today. They combined for 25 points on 9-for-20 shooting.

FSU cut the lead to three midway through the second half thanks to a nice little spurt from Braian Angola-Rodas. Rodas had hit a three and converted on a tough layup in back-to-back possessions. The team was never able to pull any closer than that, though.

CJ Walker did struggle, to the tune of two points, one turnover and four fouls.

Quick Turnaround

The Seminoles (21-6, 9-5 ACC) get one day off before returning home to host the Boston College Eagles on Monday. I would be worried about this game, but only if it were being played in Chestnut Hill. Instead, FSU will coast and win by 20.

That won’t change the fact that this team has some serious questions marks, and may not be who we thought they were. If it we want to nitpick, their 5-1 stretch against those six ranked teams is a little marred by the fact that five of them were missing a key rotational player.

But hey, time to move on. I expect Bake to have a huge game on Monday night, and lead his team to their 10th victory in conference. Check back with us that morning for our preview. Go ‘Noles!