Florida State Hits 15 Threes, Hands Notre Dame 82-79 Loss at Purcell Pavilion
It was an awfully familiar evening inside Purcell Pavilion as Florida State (11-12, 4-6 ACC) topped Notre Dame (11-13, 2-9) 82-79 on Saturday night.
The Seminoles jumped out to a 17-2 lead after drilling five three-pointers in the first four minutes, putting the Irish in an early hole once again.
It wasn’t the first time Notre Dame was blitzed out of the gate and it remains a growing concern for head coach Micah Shrewsberry.
“I'll take full responsibility for how we started the game,” Shrewsberry stated. “I have us ready to play from the start. I thought we were way too casual. I got to change what we do and how we practice, or whether it's shootaround, whatever it may be. We have to play with urgency from the start and that's my fault for having us not ready to go.”
Despite the slow start, Notre Dame showed its usual fight and clawed back into the game.
Braeden Shrewsberry kept the Irish afloat with 18 points, knocking down four three-pointers to go along with five rebounds and four assists. Freshman Jalen Haralson scored 11 of his 15 points in the second half before fouling out.
Junior Logan Imes buried a three-pointer with 2:07 remaining to give Notre Dame its first lead of the night at 75-74.
That advantage was short-lived.
Chauncey Wiggins answered with a three just 15 seconds later and Florida State closed out the game at the free-throw line to escape with the road victory.
Shrewsberry did draw up a beautiful inbound play to get Certa a wide open look from three, but it was off and Shrewsberry’s three at the buzzer missed.
Notre Dame shot 42 percent from the field and held Florida State to 38 percent overall, while also winning the rebounding battle 47-37. However, the Irish could not slow the Seminoles from beyond the arc. Florida State went 15-of-37 from three-point range and 17-of-22 from the free-throw line.
Notre Dame finished 15-of-24 at the stripe, including Carson Towt going 0-for-7.
Cole Certa added 14 points on 5-of-15 shooting, while Sir Mohammed chipped in 11 points and eight rebounds.
COACHING
First-year Florida State head coach Luke Loucks looked like the veteran on Saturday night. The Seminoles were prepared from the opening tip and executed in the game’s biggest moments to earn the road win.
As Marcus Freeman says, no game is decided by one play or one player. Yet it was Loucks who had his team prepared for a crucial situation.
With 36 seconds remaining and Notre Dame trailing by two, the Irish inbounded from halfcourt. The ball went to Towt, and Florida State immediately fouled, sending the graduate transfer to the line. Towt missed his sixth and seventh free throws of the night.
“We talked about this two days ago, yesterday and in the shootaround this morning,” explained Loucks. “If it was a close game, it would be a judgment call. Through the personnel, through the film, through the strategy of breaking stuff down to our team, we let them know that Towt had been struggling from the foul line.”
During the timeout before the inbounds play, Loucks made the decision to foul Towt, who entered the game shooting 43.6 percent from the free-throw line.
“Our coaches did an incredible job in that timeout,” said Loucks. “On the catch, if he catches it, we foul.If he's involved in a pick and roll, we're going to foul at the point of the screen. You can't foul before it's an intentional foul.
“It was Jim Moran's scout. Thank God he brought it up to the team. We had worked on it. We'd watched film on it. Our guys were prepared.”
On the other end, Shrewsberry explained why Towt was on the floor in that moment despite the risk.
“There's only a couple of guys that we have that can make contested catches in traffic, in space, up in the air, wherever it may be. One of them sitting here (Haralson), and he was sitting on the sideline next to me. The other one is Carson.”
The bigger issue loomed larger than any single possession. Notre Dame’s recurring slow starts. Shrewsberry put the responsibility squarely on himself.
“Maybe I need to change the lineup, maybe I need to change who starts, when we're subbing, whatever it may be,” Shrewsberry explained. “It was unacceptable how we started. I'll take full responsibility for it because that's the team that I'm coaching that played like that. Luke Louck's team didn't play like that to start the game. My team did, so all that falls on me.”
THREE
Notre Dame also never fully adjusted to Florida State’s willingness to fire from deep. The Seminoles hit 9-of-22 from three in the first half and followed it up by going 6-of-15 after halftime.
Six Florida State players connected from beyond the arc, led by Chauncey Wiggins, who finished 5-of-10. Meanwhile, the Seminoles’ top three-point shooter, Kobe Wiggins, went 0-for-4.
“I think Louisville has better shooters, but these guys have ultimate freedom to shoot,” Shrewsberry stated. “McGee is their best shooter, he goes 0-for-4, where a guy like, (Thomas) Bassong makes one, AJ Swinton makes two, (Robert) McCray makes four, like they just play the law of averages the other way.
“It's like keep shooting them and we're bound to make 30 percent of 40. They shot 40 because they made six out of their first 10, but we were giving them to Chauncey Wiggins who does do that. That's the part there, we can't let him get loose for five the way that he got some of those threes.”
UP NEXT
Notre Dame will travel to SMU on Tuesday night for a 7:00 PM ET tip on the ACC Network.
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