Florida State basketball (5-5) will travel to play the Dayton Flyers (8-3) on Tuesday night. The Noles have lost four consecutive games and will be +6.5 betting underdogs. The over/under points total is 162.5, which implies an 84-78 win for the Flyers.
The losses for FSU all have common themes. poor defense, poor offense, poor three-point shooting, and the inability to use their defense to generate offense off of turnovers.
The latter is something the team did when they played against lesser competition earlier in the season. However, they have gotten down big in all four losses and don’t have the ability to overcome those odds.
Here are four burning questions:
-Will they stop shooting so many three-point shots?
-Can they use their defense to generate offense?
-Can FSU defend without fouling?
-Will FSU attack the paint more since they’ve been a bit better from the free-throw line lately?
FSU is averaging 37 three-point attempts per game and only making around 30 percent of those shots. That’s too many wasted offensive possessions. We wrote how if they had a team of Steph Curry’s, taking that many threes only equates to about 45 points. They need better shot selection instead of shooting that many threes.
Teams are averaging 14.25 turnovers per game over the last four losses, and FSU has only generated 50 points off the turnovers they’ve forced in the last four games.
FSU defenders have been fouling quite a bit, with opposing teams averaging 19 free throws over the four-game losing streak. It could be that they know they don’t have a presence at the rim. However, if they’re going to foul this much, it goes back to make the risk worth the reward. They aren’t generating enough turnovers and offensive opportunities to foul that much.
FSU has been scoring in the paint. Texas A&M and Houston dominated in the paint, but they were in the same ballpark with the other two teams. They have shot it better from the free-throw line lately, but taking it to the rim and finishing, or shooting free throws, seems to be a much more efficient strategy than jacking up 37 three-pointers each game.