Florida State’s day has arrived.
The Seminoles, who have invested so much in this ACC Tournament, if only to prove their worth on the national scale, will have the opportunity to tackle the conference’s creme de la creme today.
Leonard Hamilton and his team advanced to the tourney finals with a heart-pounding power struggle against the reigning tournament champion, the Duke Blue Devils, that ended with a Luke Loucks dagger and a Seth Curry missed buzzer beater. To the winner go the spoils, and those spoils just happen to be the reigning regular season conference champion. Roy Williams and his North Carolina squad earned the right to play for the title by avoiding an upset to the fifth-seeded N.C. State Wolfpack.
The Tar Heels are banged up. ACC Defensive Player of the Year will likely be game-time decision again for a North Carolina, which has revenge on its mind after the Seminoles eviscerated it earlier this season in Tallahassee, Fla. The task is not an easy one for the No. 3 seed. It never is against this Chapel Hill bunch.
But it is possible. This team is in the finals for a reason. Here’s a look at some key aspects the Seminoles will focus on to pull off the double-dip against Duke and UNC:
Keep at it: In the hours leading up to the semifinal matchup against Duke, the semifinals' Upset Guide stated that Florida State needed to start forcing more turnovers. I said that if it could find a way to force Duke into a turnover on a quarter of its possessions, Florida State would be moving on to the finals. Well, the Seminoles forced turnovers on 25.4 percent of the Blue Devils’ possessions and here they are.
Not sure that turnovers will be the biggest factor in this game, but if Michael Snaer and his athletic teammates can frustrate the Tar Heels as much as they have their previous opponents, it will help. Anytime you ruin one-fourth of a team’s trips down the court (if they even make it down the court), you won’t lose too often at this level.
A huge factor for the Seminoles against Duke was offensive rebounding—grabbing one on 45.5 percent of its possessions and flustering a Blue Devil defense that has suffered through some lows this season. Duke is just an above-average defense at this point, but still, keeping the ball on one end of the court paid dividends in holding them to just 67 points.
That becomes even more important against North Carolina.
The Tar Heels want nothing more than to grab a defensive rebound, outlet to point guard Kendall Marshall, then find a streaking center Tyler Zeller for the transition dunk. Can’t do that without the ball. Keep that offensive rebounding percentage in the 40 percent range against a team without its leading defensive rebounder, Henson, and good things will happen.
Non-statistical note: Attack the Tar Heels. Florida State did this against Duke and got starting center Mason Plumlee to foul out. N.C. State did this against the Tar Heels and got Zeller and forward James Michael McAdoo into foul trouble. When dealing with depleted frontcourts (like Duke and UNC right now), it’s best to make them feel the loss of those extra bodies. There is no replacement for Zeller on this team right now. Florida State forward Okaro White said the team will employ the same aggressive strategy it did to get Duke in foul trouble. That’s for the best.
Cut that out: The Seminoles need to finish defensive possessions. Desperately. In its first two games this tournament, Miami and Duke grabbed an offensive rebound on 38.5 and 38.7 percent of their possessions, respectively. That’s not an end-all for this team (obviously), but similar efforts against the best offensive rebounding team in the country could be deadly.
The Tar Heels are so big and athletic up front, even without Henson, that creating extra possessions is ingrained in their offensive effectiveness. There’s no questioning that Florida State can hound North Carolina into contested jump shots and ball-handling mistakes, but when that ball comes off the rim, big men White, Bernard James and Xavier Gibson need to make sure that a Carolina arms are not reaching up for the tip-in.
Florida State has been one of the most impressive teams this Championship Week, though the final scores have not been as gaudy as expected. This one will not be another runaway, but as long as there is a lead on the scoreboard at the final buzzer, that will be impressive enough.
Non-statistical note: Play a little more inside-out this game. Florida State’s offense is extremely wing-dominant, most times running a motion offense with hand-offs between shooters like Snaer and Ian Miller to create space and mismatches. The Seminoles scored .98 points per possessions against the Blue Devils, but it could have done a better job of getting better looks. Many times the offense was bailed out by individual shooting efforts. By getting the ball to the low post more, it could create space for shooters if North Carolina doubles down.
