NCAA Tournament: Poor offense, turnovers doom Noles against Michigan

FSU basketball got off to a decent start against Michigan Sunday afternoon, but two early fouls on RaiQuan Gray changed the course of the first half and ultimately a 76-58 loss.

FSU got beat up on the offensive boards by a team that’s not great in that department, and FSU’s propensity to turn the ball over showed up in full force.

The Noles has 10 turnovers and was 0-7 from three-point land in the first half. The referees called a tight half on the Noles, with FSU only shooting two free-throws, compared to 11 for the Wolverines.

FSU basketball was lucky there were only down 11 points at halftime, but Michigan only shot 33 percent, as did FSU). The difference in the half was free-throws and two three-pointers by Michigan.

FSU had players taking shots that had no business taking shots, and overall was an awful half of basketball for the Noles.

The second half saw the Noles do a much better job of taking care of the ball. However, RaiQuan Gray received his third foul with fewer than two minutes elapsed in the second half.

The Noles only had two turnovers in the first nine minutes of the half.

The three-point shooting made an appearance, and the Noles cut the lead to five points. It looked like the Noles were about to make it a game, but the referees intervened immediately with some questionable calls, and Michigan pushed the lead back to double-digits with 10 minutes left, and that was the game.

FSU had 18 fouls called on them compared to just seven for Michigan with 10 minutes left. Michigan had 17 free-throw attempts to only five for the Noles at that point.

Look, FSU basketball did themselves no favors with the number of turnovers they had in the first half, but the fouls called disparity was atrocious and changed the momentum in the game.

The lack of point guard play for the Noles has been an issue all year, and the inability to avoid throwing possessions away ultimately cost the Noles.  Had they not wasted so many in the first half, they wouldn’t have had such a large deficit. However, much of that was due to RaiQuan Gray sitting with two fouls for most of the first half.

It was a good season all things considered, with the amount of experience and talent they lost from last year’s team.