Noles not stuck in muck, have luck

FSU overcomes Jackets’ deliberate style to triumph

TALLAHASSEE — Nothing has come easy for No. 25 Florida State this season, and Saturday was no different as its matchup with Georgia Tech turned into low-scoring, grind-itout affair.

The Seminoles found a way to earn a 59-49 win, improving to 16-5 overall and 4-4 in the ACC.

Georgia Tech head coach Josh Pastner said the plan coming into the game was to “muck it up” defensively and slow the pace down to a near halt. It was effective to an extent as FSU shot 11 of

28 in the first half and 16 of

46 for the game.

Still, the Seminoles were able to build a 55-47 lead with 5:44 left in the game that proved to be just enough as the two teams struggled to score during the final four minutes.

“It confused us a little bit,” Mfiondu Kabengele said of Georgia Tech’s zone defense. “But Iwe had great timeouts and communicated well on how to attack it, and it worked out in the Florida State’s Trent Forrest splits the Georgia Tech defense as he drives to the basket .

end.”

Trent Forrest and Terance Mann both hit a pair of free throws with under a minute to play, ending the drought and putting the finishing touches on the victory. Mann said staying the course was key to getting the win.

“I just think being able to execute our offense, whether the shot was falling or not, and trying to get second-opportunity shots [was critical],” Mann said. “Get the ball in the paint and get to areas you know you can score efficiently. The shots weren’t falling, but people were able to score in other ways, and I think shooting it at the freethrow line we did pretty well.”

Mann and Kabengele

both had 12 points to lead the Seminoles. Phil Cofer was back in the starting lineup for FSU and finished with five points.

FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said the Yellow Jackets challenged his team defensively as well.

“They got the ball inside and I didn’t think we did a very good job of covering down,” Hamilton said. “We allowed them to get three dribbles inside, and when you do that they get their rhythm and they made us pay.”

The Seminoles still held the Yellow Jackets (11-11) scoreless during the last 4:30 and let them hit just one of their last 17 shot attempts. Hamilton said as a whole his team rose to the occasion.

“Overall, we did a pretty solid job defensively,” he said. “It’s going take that kind of effort on a consistent basis. We’ve been playing pretty well defensively these last three games, I think that’s been pretty solid.”

Hamilton noted that his team’s shooting has been inconsistent and that’s one area it will look to fix in the immediate future. He added that the Georgia Tech game will help rectify that as the Seminoles face a similar team in Syracuse at home Tuesday.

“This is the kind of game that we’ll go back and learn a lot from,” Hamilton said. “Watching the film, we’ll have a chance to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of how we approach this game because this will help prepare us for the next game that we play, against Syracuse, who uses another type of zone defensive philosophy.”

“Counting Syracuse, it will be three straight teams we’ll have played who all use different zone philosophies. So we’re going to be well versed in how to attack these things. I just hope we can keep figuring out how to be ahead by half a point at the end of the game and hopefully we can learn while we win.”

STEVEN CANNON/AP