TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- It was a tale of two halves for the Florida State Seminoles on Sunday afternoon.
The Seminoles failed to score for over nine minutes in the first half of their 55-54 come-from-behind victory over No. 23 Miami. A combination of poor shooting and excellent defense by the Hurricanes held Florida State to just 25 points in the first 20 minutes.
FSU, however, turned it around in the second half. Led by a spirited effort from junior guard Montay Brandon, Florida State began playing suffocating defense of its own and capitalized on fast-break opportunities.
"Their defense in the second half -- we only scored 18 -- their defense in the second half really was the difference," Miami head coach Jim Larranaga said. "Brandon stole the ball twice and dunked it twice at the beginning of the second half. That fired them up, and all of a sudden our lead evaporated."
Brandon finished the contest with a game-high 18 points and helped the Seminoles get their first win over a ranked opponent since December of 2013 (University of Massachusetts).
"Everybody had that look in the eye like, 'Let's get this done,'" Brandon said. "I knew I needed to step up, so I just made some plays."
Miami, one of the Atlantic Coast Conference's best 3-point shooting teams, went cold in the second half, going 6 of 19 from the field and just 2 of 9 (22.2 percent) from behind the arc.
"From a defensive standpoint, we weren't doing things we needed to do in the first half," FSU head coach Leonard Hamilton said. "They are an unbelievably accurate 3-point shooting team, and in the second half I thought we did a much better job of contesting shots."
Sunday's victory marked the second straight in which Florida State battled back from a double-digit deficit.
"I hope that's not our identity," Hamilton said of his team's ability to fall behind and come back to win. "We've gotta do a better job than we have these last two games, but I think our guys will learn from these games."
Added Brandon: "We didn't want to go out that way, we didn't want to be 3-6 (in the conference). We didn't want to be that team at the bottom of the conference...we don't quit, we play hard."
