Posted by BillFromTampa

Too many turnovers, less than stellar defense in the second half, and shots that would not find the bottom of the basket all led to a disappointing 71-60 loss for the Seminoles to the Virginia Tech Hokies.

Florida State just simply could not seem to hang onto the ball committing 20 turnovers in the game too many of which that were unforced errors.

What had been a strength in their last two games, the ‘Noles’ defense failed in the final twenty. The ‘Noles were torched for 63% shooting in the second half by Tech.’,'Add to that the Seminoles missed many wide open opportunities to knock down the shot. Leonard Hamilton commented afterwards “I have never seen so many point blank shots not go in. We simply had too many missed opportunities around the basket.”

The head coach noted a stretch in the second half where his team missed three point blank layups and two tip ins.

But lack of effort and the inability of Hamilton’s team to defend seemed to be the most displeasing aspect to the coach. “We simply didn’t get enough stops and combined with shots not falling, that’s a bad combination”, said Hamilton.

“We were not at our best tonight. When you don’t come to play your best, bad things happen like what happened tonight.”

There were early indications that the team was not anywhere near its best. After two alley oop plays to Thornton resulted in turnovers, Hamilton called timeout less than two minutes into the game. Later, after yet another turnover, obviously unhappy with what he was seeing, Hamilton pulled all five starters and inserted the second unit.

The move seemed to improve the team’s performance especially from Ralph Mims and Uche Echefu. Despite Al Thornton and Alexander Johnson combining for just 17 minutes playing time due to each picking up two fouls, FSU, playing from behind most of the time, managed to forge a 27-27 tie at the half.

FSU came out and grabbed the lead immediately in the second half and traded leads three more times in the first 4:11. Jerel Allen’s three gave FSU its last lead at 41-40 with 15:49 left.

Where it appeared to fall apart for FSU was when Thornton picked up his fourth foul on a charging call trailing 48-46. Zabian Dowdell quickly nailed a three pointer and Jamon Gordon converted a transition basket off a long rebound from a missed Andrew Wilson three.

Although Todd Galloway’s two free throws closed the gap to 53-51 with 7:08 remaining, turnovers, missed shots, and the Hokies pushing the ball off those misses gave Tech the chance to open a 60-51 margin.

Again Galloway closed the margin to 60-56 from the charity stripe. And again second chance points and transition baskets gave Tech a 70-58 lead with only 1:33.

That was a lead the Seminoles could not overcome especially with shots still clanging off the rim. A meaningless basket by Thornton with seconds left finished the scoring for the game.

Leading the way for the ‘Noles was Johnson who just missed another double double. The junior forward finished with 15 points and 9 rebounds.

Thornton was the only other Seminole in double figures with 13 points.

But that could not nearly offset four Tech players in double digits led by Dowdell’s 20 points.

The loss is a setback to the Seminole’s quest to make the NCAA tournament. Instead of moving into fifth place alone at least temporarily, the ‘Noles drop to 17-8 overall and 7-7 in the conference.

The job of getting to The Dance becomes even tougher as there probably isn’t an FSU fan that doesn’t know that you know who comes to Tallahassee on Wednesday. The Blue Devils, fresh off their win over Temple, will tip off with the Seminoles at 7:00 PM. He game is to be shown on ESPN.