FSU basketball: Woeful shooting downs Noles against Pittsburgh

FSU basketball (8-18, 6-9 ACC) lost its fifth game in its last six outings with an 83-75 score against Pittsburgh Saturday afternoon.

The Tucker Center used to be a place where the Noles were undefeated, but that homecourt advantage is no more.

FSU shot a higher percentage from the floor overall, but the difference in the game was three-point shooting and lots of little things that added up over the course of the game. Pittsburgh shot 10 of 31 from three-point land, whereas the Noles only shot 5 of 21.

That’s a 15-point difference with nearly everything else nearly even. FSU basketball just couldn’t hit open shots. Pittsburgh was 19 of 23 from the charity stripe, and the Noles were 20 of 24. FSU had 11 turnovers, and Pittsburgh only had eight.

There were too many times when Pittsburgh got an offensive rebound and scored when FSU should have gotten the rebound.

There were some careless turnovers and poor shot selection overall. The Noles were down 37-33 at the half and took one point lead with 13:12 remaining. However, they couldn’t sustain it and never got closer than a three-point deficit with 4:39 remaining.

Jalen Warley led the Noles with 23 points on 9 of 11 shooting. Matthew Cleveland only had six points on 2 of 8 shooting, and Darin Green Jr. was only 1 of 8 from three-point land.

Caleb Mills and Cam Corhen had 16 and 13 points, respectively. I love coach Leonard Hamilton, but I don’t see him turning this program around next year. I wish that were not the case, but it’s going to take new leadership to get this program back to respectability again.

The Noles will be back in action Wednesday night when they travel to play Clemson. The game will start at 7 p.m. ET.