FSU Basketball beyond lucky to get first round bye in ACC Tournament

FSU basketball had to fight back Saturday against Boston College just to keep hope alive of getting a first round bye in Brooklyn this week.

With just over six minutes left in their regular season finale on Saturday, the FSU basketball team looked like they were in serious trouble – trailing by five points against a Boston College team who, with a win, would have jumped the then 10th seeded Seminoles in the ACC tournament field and dropped the Noles even further to 11th place in the 15 team field.

All of a sudden, the basketball Gods came down to the Tucker Center and said “Okay, just this once” and helped lead the Seminoles on an 18-4 run, which included eight points each from Trent Forrest and Braian Angola as part of their team high 21 points each, to give Florida State their 20th win of the season with an 85-76 victory over the Eagles.

With that victory, FSU basketball started scoreboard watching – and with losses by Notre Dame against top ranked Virginia and Louisville against N.C. State, the Seminoles found themselves jumping up to the eighth seed in Brooklyn this week and will actually be the “home” team for their first game on Wednesday against the Cardinals.

For all the talk about how the Seminoles have been unlucky at points this season – having a 20-10 record but having seven of those losses (six in the ACC) be by seven points of less – this is a Noles team that also had four wins that were by five points or less, including two of their ranked wins this season against North Carolina (one point) and Clemson (two points).

Instead of playing the what if game, perhaps it might be time for those of us in garnet and gold to be thankful for what this season ended up being. After a 24-7 regular season last year that included a 7-2 record against ranked teams and led to a second place ACC regular season finish and a third seed in the NCAA tournament, it was expected the fall off wouldn’t be too much.

Losing your three leading scorers and rebounders from that FSU basketball team is something that can’t be replaced with the snap of a finger. It also doesn’t help when you have a starting lineup where it was rare down the stretch to have multiple players have big nights at the same time.

With just a 3-4 record against ranked opponents and a losing record over the final nine games of the regular season, it’s a wonder that this Florida State team who was once ranked in the top 20 and entered ACC play with an 11-1 record actually finished where they did with what started and ended the conference slate (2-4 to start and 3-4 to finish).

Next: Strong second half powers Noles past Boston College

So, instead of wondering what went wrong for FSU basketball to fall from second seed to eighth seed in just one season, take a moment and be thankful for what could have been for the Seminoles – a double digit seed and staring down the barrel of a NIT berth like old times.