FSU basketball holds off scrappy Boston University for overtime win

FSU basketball (5-1, 0-0 ACC) won its fourth consecutive game with a 81-80 overtime victory over Boston University (4-3) Wednesday night. The Noles held a 37-35 halftime lead with Boston University shooting at a 48 percent clip.

However, the Noles opened up a nine-point lead early in the second half and had control of the game until the final couple of minutes.

Boston University made a couple of clutch shots and Anthony Polite missed the front end of a 1-1 to allow Boston College to hit a three-pointer at the buzzer to send the game to overtime.

Caleb Mills, Matthew Cleveland, Cameron Fletcher, and Anthony Polite led the Noles in scoring with 17, 17, 11, and 11 points. Matthew Cleveland made a put-back layup with two seconds remaining off of a Caleb Mills missed contested layup for the game-winning bucket.

Defensively, the Noles had 12 steals and only turned the ball over 12 times. The hot shooting of Boston University is what kept them in the game as they were 9 of 27 from three-point range and 48 percent overall.

The Noles shot 47.2 percent from the floor and made 15 of 20 free-throws. However, FSU continues to struggle on the boards as Boston was +2 overall.

FSU basketball shot it well from three-point land, making 6 of 15. This game was the last tune-up before the Noles travel to No. 3 Purdue next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.

Thoughts

The team seemed to lack defensive intensity in the first half of the game. Maybe we can chalk it up to playing on Thanksgiving Eve or their third game in four days.

The effort was better in the second half, in particular the first few minutes. They seemed to relax too much late in the game and the Polite missed free-throw at the end of regulation was crucial. They will need a much better effort if they want any chance of upsetting Purdue on the road. The Noles played the game without RayQuan Evans, who lost his brother a couple of days ago(he played in the last game after finding out the sad news).

I still expect the team to show inconsistency until they play about 12-15 games. I think they’ll have a better idea of what their identity is at that point. However, freshman Matthew Cleveland seems to be finding some earlier confidence that could take him to the next level.