Posted by BillFromTampa

They might as well have just run a replay of last year’s game against Georgia State when the Seminoles lost a 19 point lead only to see Derwin Kitchen convert two free throws in the waning seconds to put the game out of reach and securing a 62-57 win.

Fast forward to Tuesday night’s game.

With FSU leading by 17 in the second half, the ‘Noles struggled to bring home the win. Once again Kitchen sank two crucial free throws with twenty three seconds remaining to give the ‘Noles a six point lead.

A defensive stand at the other end in the form of another blocked shot by Solomon Alabi, his sixth of the night, made sure there would be a similar outcome.

Luke Loucks made one of two from the stripe that gave FSU almost virtually the same score as last year’s game against the Panthers winning 62-55.

Unlike recent games, FSU started off fairly strong getting out to a 25-11 lead at the 8:30 mark when Loucks’ no look pass found Xavier Gibson for the wide open slam dunk.

The Seminoles even did a good job of protecting the ball in committing just one turnover in the first seven minutes.

The remainder of the half however …. that was a hold onto your hats kind of thing as the Panthers closed to 28-24 when several offensive rebounds resulted in James Vincent’s put back and just 1:09 on the clock.

Two free throws by Alabi made it 30-24 as the teams went to the locker room.

Leonard Hamilton made his adjustments at halftime mostly with the lineup and on defense that produced good results. A string of six straight points by Michael Snaer gave FSU its largest lead at 52-27.

It was then hang for dear life after that as familiar problems, namely turnovers and poor decisions, showed themselves again.

Georgia State went on an 18-7 run lead by Joe Dukes who went on a tear with 12 points during the run. Trey Goldston’s basket following three consecutive turnovers by the ‘Noles closed the gap to 59-55 with 1:20 left in the game.

It didn’t help the FSU cause when Snaer tried to feed a pass to Alabi on the left block but was off target and the ball bounced off the center’s hand out of bounds.

Thanks to Alabi’s defensive rebound, Kitchen’s free throws, and Solomon’s 6th block of the night the Seminoles hung on for its ninth win of the season.

Alabi led the ‘Noles with a career high 22 points and Snaer added 10 for his fourth game in a row in double figures.

Dukes matched Alabi in scoring 22 as well but the Panthers had no one else in double digits.
Particularly troubling for the ‘Noles was free throw shooting where FSU converted just 17 of 29 attempts and was just 3 of 11 from the arc.

While it was a win Hamilton definitely was not happy after the game.

“We did not play very well tonight at all”, Hamilton said. “The team has a problem of sticking to the offensive system for 40 minutes and sticking to the defensive system for 40 minutes. We are still not consistent with our execution and doing the same things over and over.”

A myriad of lineups might have had something to do with that. Hamilton admitted at the half that he perhaps experimented with too many combinations and would not do as many rotations in the remaining half.
It didn’t seem to have much effect.

“We are not committed to moving or reversing the ball. When we should be going right, we go left. When we should be going left, we go right.”

The criticism from Hamilton did not stop there.

“We are not the same team compared to practice. I was not pleased with how we defended. We didn’t fight through screens, block out well, or rotate properly. We’re making poor judgments and it’s not like we don’t talk about this every day.”

Apparently Hamilton will still be talking to his team about that aspect.

“We will get this straightened out and start playing a lot better basketball.”

That will need to be soon as Florida State will host Auburn at 7 PM on Thursday.