No. 6 Florida State rallies to win against Louisville
Florida State’s home dominance looked shaky as it trailed Louisville by 10 points in the second half.
The Seminoles quickly regrouped and mounted a surge to defend their floor and move atop the Atlantic Coast Conference — for now.
Trent Forrest scored 14 of his 16 points after halftime, and No. 6 Florida State rallied from the double-digit deficit to beat No. 11 Louisville 82-67 on Monday night.
The Seminoles (24-4, 143) moved past the Cardinals into first place in the ACC. They lead Louisville and No. 7 Duke by a halfgame in pursuit of their first ACC regular-season championship.
Three games remain, but this victory spoke volumes about FSU’s desire to make it happen.
“We’re here and here to stay,” Forrest said. “We’ve been on the up-and-up basically since my freshman year. We’ve been going out each night and trying to get the respect that we deserve. We just have to keep building on it.”
Patrick Williams’ thunderous dunk put an exclamation point to a 15-0 run that put the Seminoles ahead for good. Florida State outscored Louisville 50-27 in the second half and extended its home winning streak to 22 games.
The Seminoles’ second-half run came with starters on the bench. Reserve guards Anthony Polite (eight points) and RayQuan Evans (four) were productive offensively and sparked the rally with stifling defense.
“We have been winning games all year with the quality of our depth and our ability to play good defense for long periods of time,” Florida State coach
Leonard Hamilton said.
Devin Vassell and M.J. Walker each scored 12 points for FSU, which set a school record for ACC regular-season wins. Vassell scored 10 points after halftime.
Ryan McMahon scored 14 points and Jordan Nwora had 13 points and eight rebounds for Louisville (23-6, 14-4), which went more than nine minutes without a field goal during one second-half stretch.
“We battled,” Louisville coach Chris Mack said. “I thought their pressure, although it might not have turned us over, kept us on our heels. We handled it for the first 20 minutes. Just didn’t keep up the pace in the second half.”
TEXAS 67, WEST VIRGINIA 57 » Andrew Jones scored 22 points, Courtney Ramey 21 and Matt Coleman 13 as Texas defeated No. 20 West
Virginia. For West Virginia Oscar Tshiebwe scored 13, Sean McNeil 13 and Derek Culver 12 as the Mountaineers ourscored the Longhorns in both halves to take the victory.
KANSAS 83, OKLAHOMA STATE 58 » Udoka Azubuike had 19 points and 16 rebounds, Ochai Agbaji added 15 points, and topranked Kansas blew out Oklahoma State.
Devon Dotson added 11 points and Christian Braun and David McCormack had 10 apiece for the Jayhawks, whose victory over the No. 2 Bears allowed them to retake the top spot in the AP poll earlier in the day.
Cameron McGriff led the Cowboys with 16 points, though most came with the game well out of reach. Isaac Likekele and Lindy Waters added 11 apiece as Oklahoma State was held to 39% shooting from the field.