Seminoles leading the way
FSU entering tourney as its No. 1 seed for the first time
Florida State has accomplished several milestones in Leonard Hamilton’s nearly two decades with the Seminoles, from winning an Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament to getting within a game of the Final Four two seasons ago.
Yet his fourth-ranked Seminoles have never been in the position they are this week: entering the league tournament as the No. 1 seed after winning their first ACC regular-season championship.
The five-day tournament opened Tuesday in Greensboro, North Carolina., with two first-round games. The Seminoles, No. 10 Duke, No. 15 Louisville and No. 17 Virginia have byes into Thursday’s quarterfinals, with FSU trying to add a second title to its lone championship in 2012.
Florida State will open tournament play against Clemson on Thursday at 12:30 p.m. The game will air on ESPN.
Owning their highest ranking since December 1972, the Seminoles (26-5, 16-4 ACC) have won with a deep rotation and tough defense. Only senior point guard Trent Forrest averages 30 minutes, and the Seminoles have seven players averaging between Devin Vassell’s team-high 12.7 points and Anthony Polite’s 5.8.
The combination has FSU ranked as the ACC’s No. 2 scoring offense (75.4) while also ranking in the top four in shooting, free-throw and 3-point percentage. The Seminoles also rank 14th nationally in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency (91.5 points allowed per 100 possessions).
“You believe in his vision; you believe in his words,” Forrest said of Hamilton, who was named ACC Coach of the Year. “He got through to us at a young age. Just to see where we are now, we definitely feel like we’re program builders or changers.”
Since Florida State joined the ACC for the 1991-92 season, Duke has won 13 tournament titles and North Carolina has won six. FSU can join Wake Forest (1995 and 1996) and Virginia (2014 and 2018) as the only other ACC
programs to win more than one during that stretch.
The Cavaliers (23-7, 15-5) surged through February to earn the No. 2 seed after finishing in a three-way tie for second with Louisville and Duke — two of the recordtying seven different teams to reach No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 this season. Virginia, which lost to the Seminoles in last year’s semifinals before winning the program’s first NCAA championship, has won eight straight and 11 of 12 since late January.
“I think we really like playing with each other and I think we’re just having a lot of fun out there, just competing with each other,” point guard Kihei Clark said after Saturday’s win against the Cardinals. “We know what we can do and what we can accomplish.”
NO JACKETS
For the third time since expanding to 15 teams, the ACC had only 14 teams in the tournament.
Georgia Tech (17-14, 11-9) didn’t play in Greensboro after withdrawing its appeal of an NCAA postseason ban for rules violations. That means the first round featured only two games instead of three.
Syracuse (2015) and Louisville (2016) also sat out due to self-imposed postseason bans amid NCAA infractions cases.
DO LOSSES MATTER?
The ACC has had three teams win the national championship in the previous five seasons in Duke (2015), UNC (2017) and Virginia (last year). All three lost in the ACC semifinals before going 6-0 in the NCAA Tournament.
The ACC Tournament champion hasn’t gone on to win the national title since Duke did it in 2010 and has reached the Final Four only once since.