FSU basketball: ‘Noles offense struggles in win over Tulane

FSU basketball struggled offensively in a 59-54 win over Tulane Wednesday night. The Noles entered the game as -19 point underdogs and found themselves with a three-point lead with 1:33 remaining in the game.

In the preseason, I wrote the Noles would likely take time to find themselves with so many new faces and freshman playing minutes.

That’s what Leonard Hamilton is dealing with through three games. There is a lack of decisiveness and crispness with questionable shot selection. They struggled a great deal againse Tulane’s zone look. Defensively, FSU held Tulane to 29.1 percent from the floor, but Tulane made 9 of 26 three-pointers to keep it close with FSU’s offensive struggles.

The Noles shot 40 percent from the floor and continue to struggle at the free-throw line making 9 of 16. One concern that continued from the Florida game was FSU on the board. Tulane had as many offensive rebounds (15) as the Noles and forced 15 turnovers that turned into double-digit points for the Green Wave. Malik Osborne nearly had another double-double with nine points and 10 rebounds. Transfers Caleb Mills and Cameron Fletcher led all FSU scoring with 13 and 11 points.

Thoughts

I know FSU basketball fans like to overreact, but this should not surprise anyone. This team isn’t anywhere close to the same team as last year, and they don’t have the player experience to lean on as in years past.

The ACC isn’t the same conference as in years past either. Boston College lost to Rhode Island, and Virginia already has an awful loss. Leonard Hamilton usually likes to use these early games to find the most effective rotations and combinations.

He’s been doing this for a long-time, and they have a couple of games coming up where they can continue to work the kinks out before taking on highly-ranked Purdue in the ACC/Big 10 challenge. The Noles will return to action Sunday, November 21, hosting Loyola Marymount at 5:30 p.m. ET on the CBSSN.