FSU crushed by Michigan
Seminoles should have won last season, but have a shot next year
The shame isn’t that this year’s Florida State team won’t get to play in the Final Four or for the national championship after the Seminoles got dominated 76-58 Sunday by No. 1-seeded Michigan in the Sweet 16.
The shame of it is that last year’s team never even got an opportunity to try.
“Part of our motivation [was] having last year’s team on our minds and playing for those guys,” FSU redshirt junior RaiQuan Gray said earlier in the tournament.
And that’s why many in the college basketball world were rooting for beloved FSU coach Leonard Hamilton’s team to win it all this season; because he had an even better team last year that never got a chance to play in the coronavirus-canceled NCAA Tournament.
The Seminoles won a schoolfirst Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season championship last season and were ranked higher than they’ve ever been ranked (No. 4) in the Associated Press poll, and Hamilton had his best chance to get to the Final Four for the first time in his 34 years as a college basketball head coach.
Of course, Hamilton and his team handled the disappointment as you would expect — with class and dignity. While Hamilton appreciated the political gesture when the state Senate declared the Seminoles as the 2020 NCAA basketball champions, he politely deferred. In fact, when I suggested to him that we could get former UCF athletics director Danny White to present him with the state of Florida’s second self-proclaimed national championship trophy, Hamilton chuckled politely and deferred again.
“That might not be one of your best ideas,” Hamilton told me.
“I’m honored that people have that level of respect for where our program is and what we’re doing ... but a lot of things have to happen for you to win the national championship.”
Unfortunately, as we fast-forward to Sunday, none of those things happened against the Wolverines, who outclassed the Seminoles in every way imaginable. All of the positives the Seminoles seemingly had going for them against a talented Michigan team never came to fruition.
The Seminoles are the tallest team in the nation and are big at every position with their rotation
Turn to Bianchi, Page 8