Game Preview: Florida State at Clemson

The 'Noles are desperate for a win in the ACC.

Florida State, after putting themselves in a great situation beating Duke and Miami, has now firmly put themselves on the bubble as we enter February. Missteps against Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech undid almost all of the progress they had made. There's a chance to make some amends here tonight against Clemson. 

Despite Clemson having lost at home to Boston College earlier in the season, they sit 72nd in the NET rankings, just barely making this a Q1 opportunity for FSU. They could definitely use this win to get some momentum back on their side. Everyone always talks about the "magic number" to get into the NCAA tournament. Realistically, I think it's going to be around 21 wins, meaning FSU would have to go 7-3 from here on out. 

Tonight will be the 78th all-time matchup between these two, with FSU owning the all-time series 45-32, though Clemson has won 3 of the last 4 games played at Clemson between these two. 

This game will be at 7 pm on the ACC Network, live from Littlejohn Coliseum in Clemson, SC. 

Clemson Tigers (11-9, 3-6) Breakdown

It's a surprise Clemson is as high analytically as they are, similar to Virginia Tech. 11-9 isn't great, they don't have any good wins, and have a bad loss at home against a bad Boston College team. The Tigers haven't beaten a single team inside the KenPo Top-90, while also having 4 losses to teams outside the top-90. Clemson needs a good win, Florida State just needs a win. 

This game may end up having a similar feel to the Virginia Tech, as Clemson has plenty of great shooters as well, which we'll get to here in a minute. They really haven't put together a strong conference performance thus far either, much like VT coming into the last game. The only ACC games Clemson has won are at Virginia, at NC State, and home against Pittsburgh, and are 1-2 at home in ACC play. They also haven't played since a January 5th loss at Duke, which came down to the wire. They've had plenty of time to regroup and get ready for this game. 

Clemson came out of the gates firing from 3, with just three games below 38% from 3 through the first 11 games. Since then, they've cooled down just a little. There was a four-game stretch in mid-January where Clemson shot 23/88 from distance (26.1%), but have caught fire again in their last two games against Pittsburgh and Duke (total of 23/51, 45.1%). Their wins and losses typically come from how their opponent shoots the 3, though. Generally, you want to keep Clemson shooting below 40% from 3, where they're 3-6, but they're just 1-6 in games where their opponent shoots better than 36% from 3. Florida State has been extremely hot and cold this season from deep, so they may have to find some success here. 

They do a solid job taking care of the basketball, and it doesn't really seem to affect if they win or lose. They lost to St Bonaventure with a turnover rate of just 9.7%, and also lost to West Virginia with an insane turnover rate of 30.4%, with ranges of all games in between. It really seems to matter how they can turn over other players. Florida State fans will be relieved to find out Clemson is exclusively a man-to-man team, only running about 33 possessions of zone all season, but they do a solid job of forcing turnovers and limiting 3-point success, forcing a 17.7% turnover rate and holding teams to 33.3% from the arc. For anyone to want to have success against Clemson, they have to keep themselves below a 20% turnover rate, as Clemson is 7-0 in games where they force a turnover rate of 20% or more. That's going to have to be a major correction point for FSU. After having one of the best games ever protecting the ball against Duke, they've been above 20% in their last three games against Miami, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech, and almost got there against UNF at 18%. 

It's going to be a close race between NC State's Dereon Seabron and Clemson's PJ Hall for ACC Most Improved Player. Take a look at PJ Hall's freshmen statline (3.5 PPG, 2.0 RPG, 0.1 APG; shooting split of 49.2/13.3/75.0) compared to this sophomore campaign (14.8 PPG, 6.1 RPG, 1.7 APG; shooting split of 47.5/31.1/74.2). That's an insane jump. He went from a guy that, while highly touted as a prospect, was borderline unplayable last year to a guy that's leading his team across many aspects, and is arguably the focal point of the offense. Part of it does come from more opportunity with Aamir Simms having moved on to the professional level, but again Hall was almost unplayable last season. He only played a total of 209 minutes across 21 games last season, including just 2 minutes in their NCAA Tournament game against Rutgers. His ability to stretch the floor against bigger centers like FSU's bigs is going to be something I'm watching in this one. 

David Collins transferred in from USF and has become a much more efficient player. He's always been capable of getting buckets, as evidenced by his 30-point game against Memphis when he was a freshman. Now as a fifth-year senior, he's shooting a career-high from the floor (53.2%), from 2 (54.8%), and from 3 (46.4%, though on a career-low of attempts per game), but is shooting a career-low from the free-throw line (54.3%, an XRM of a career if I've ever seen it). He's still a pest on and off the ball, posting a steal rate of 3.7%, which is top-100 nationally. Despite that free throw percentage, he's ELITE at drawing fouls, one of the 40-best players in the country at it. 

Al-Amir Dawes has become more and more of a shot chucker as his career has gone on (somehow he's only a junior????). His statistics between his freshman and sophomore year were remarkably similar, with just an uptick inefficiency. Now that he's in his junior year, his efficiency has continued to go up while also getting more shots. He averaged about 4.5 to 5 3PA per game between his first two seasons, but now that's gone up to more than 6 attempts per game, and he's making them at a career-high 41.3% clip. He had a phenomenal game against Pitt last week, with 19 points on 5/8 shooting from beyond the arc. 

Nick Honor is a little on the smaller side at 5'10", but he's fearless and plays like a bulldog. He can get shot happy, capable of 2/10 or 3/10 performances, but he's reigned it in, for the most part, this season. He's now been able to mix in the 4/5 shooting with 4 assists games, which I think is a big development for him. I still think he plays out of control at times. 

Hunter Tyson is the perfect do it all player who isn't a go-to guy. Can score at any level efficiently, is a solid rebounder, doesn't really make a lot of mistakes... he's exactly what you want from your 4-man. His best performance came against South Carolina, where he had 18 points and 13 rebounds. 

Off the bench, they have two really good shooters in Chase Hunter and Alex Hemenway. Hunter is shooting 39.3% from deep on 1.8 attempts per game, and Hemenway is shooting 45.1% from deep on 2.4 attempts per game, though he's kind of struggled as of late (4/16, 25%, in his last 4 games from 3). The other guy off of the bench is Naz Bohannon, who is really just an energy big off of the bench. 

Florida State Seminoles (13-7, 6-4) Breakdown

It's been a busy couple of weeks for me personally, so I haven't been able to do game-changing plays after the last couple of games. Even despite being at the Georgia Tech game, the WiFi was so bad at the arena I couldn't get the plays downloaded at all there or at the place I was staying. Virginia Tech was just a self-explanatory game; the Hokies shot 18/25 from 3. FSU did fairly well in every other statistic, but it's almost impossible to overcome that kind of shooting. 

I've only seen a couple of teams shoot that well, and it's all been in a practice. 72% is the best a team has ever shot from 3 against a Leonard Hamilton Florida State team, and only the second time a team has shot 70% or better (the other game being home against Notre Dame in 2017, a wild game if anyone remembers that one). It's not going to get much easier against a Clemson team that is capable of great performances from 3 as well. It's going to be a very important test for a young Florida State defense. 

The Virginia Tech game was just compounding on what has been an issue for this team, and that's defending the 3. They're currently one of the 40-worst teams in college basketball, allowing teams to shoot 37.5% from 3 on the season, and it's even worse in ACC play. It's a young team showing its ugly side. They're jumpy on defense, get caught ball-watching far too much, and crash off of shooters for drivers too soon and too aggressively. They need more stunting, not sprinting, at least against good 3-point shooting teams. 

This team needs Caleb Mills and RayQuan Evans available and eager to go in this one. You could tell Evans wasn't in the right frame of mind against GT and was an unbelievably low -22 in that game, so it didn't surprise me to see him sit out against VT. Caleb Mills didn't play much in the second half against GT, then shouldn't have played against VT, and the minutes he did play were terrible. Just from a ball-handling aspect, FSU needs these guys to be ready to go, and even more so from a young team needing veteran presence. 

With Malik Osborne out for the season, I think FSU needs to move away from switching 1-5 and leaving their 5s on an island on the perimeter on defense. It's becoming increasingly obvious that they need Naheem McLeod on the floor on offense, so they need to make life easier for him on defense. Let ball handlers funnel into him instead of driving past him. They can still switch 1-4, since a lot of those positions are interchangeable anyways, just help Naheem out a little. It's tough to do this with just a little more than a month left in the season, but I think it would go a long way in improving the defense and keeping Naheem on the floor. 

One more thing to watch for is how John Butler plays being so close to home. We've already seen a couple of bad performances when guys are playing close to home: Matthew Cleveland just 2/9 shooting at Georgia Tech, and Butler himself had 3 turnovers against South Carolina in the game in Rock Hill. Hopefully, he's matured a little bit since that game. 

Injury Report

Florida State has a lot going on in their injury report currently. 

Malik Osborne is out for the season with an ankle injury. 

RayQuan Evans is questionable to play after sitting out against Virginia Tech for bereavement. It's fair to say the loss of his brother is still weighing heavily on him. 

Caleb Mills is questionable to play with bronchitis. He only played about 3 minutes against VT, and really shouldn't have played. 

Projected Starters

Clemson

G: Nick Honor

G: Al-Amir Dawes

G: David Collins

F: Hunter Tyson

F: PJ Hall

Florida State

G: Jalen Warley

G: Caleb Mills

G: Anthony Polite

F: John Butler

F: Naheem McLeod

Keys to the Game

3-Point Defense

At some point, I'm going to start sounding like a broken record putting this in keys to the game, but until FSU gets this figured out, it's going to be the biggest factor. ACC teams are shooting 39.4% from 3 against the 'Noles, which is somehow not the worst mark in the league. Some of that is ballooned by VT's 18/25 performance against them, but it's been an issue all season. They'll now be going up against a Clemson team that is shooting 38.7% from 3 on the season. Which is very good. 

FSU is going to have to keep an eye on Alex Hemenway and Al-Amir Dawes in particular, as they're both well above 40% from 3 on multiple attempts per game. David Collins is above 40% from 3 as well, but he's under 2 attempts per game. Nick Honor isn't afraid to fire away either. This is going to be a big challenge for FSU. 

Take Care of the Basketball

Florida State has had moments this season where they've been great taking care of the ball, like having just 5 turnovers against Duke, posting one of the lowest turnover rates ever under Coach Hamilton. They've also had some not-so-great moments, like 17 turnovers against Georgia Tech. For FSU to give themselves a chance, they're going to have to stay under a 20% turnover rate in this game. Clemson is 7-0 in games where they force a turnover rate of 30% or better, and just 4-11 in games forcing a turnover rate less than 20%. Success for Florida State starts there, so hopefully, Evans is mentally able to go in this, and Warley is up to the challenge. 

Efficiency

This could be tied in with taking care of the basketball, but FSU has had their struggles shooting the ball, especially from 3. Clemson is 2-6 when their opponent shoots better than 34% from 3, and 3-6 when their opponent shoots 50% or better from 2. I expect FSU to really try and get to the rim, since Clemson doesn't have any shot blockers, as PJ Hall is the only player on the team with a block rate over 2% (and even he's only at 4.5%). As a team, they're only at 7.1%, which really isn't that strong. Florida State will have to find quick hitters, so expect a couple of lob sets. 

Game Prediction

Clemson opened as 4-point favorites, with an over/under of around 137.5. 

Florida State desperately needs this win, but they're going against another elite 3-point shooting team while having one of the worst 3-point defenses in the country. It'll be interesting to see how they respond and if they're defense is any stronger in this game, but I'm going to err on the side of caution. 

Clemson 66-64