Corey Clark: How did FSU hoops get to this point, and can the Seminoles turn it around?

It’s not fair what is happening to Leonard Hamilton right now. He’s too good a person to be cursed like this by the basketball gods.

Three years ago, he had an all-time great team. A legitimate national championship contender featuring multiple NBA Draft lottery picks, and the NCAA Tournament was canceled.

Two years ago, he had maybe the best player in school history not named Cowens. A player so energetic and brash and contagiously enthusiastic that he would’ve blown the roof off a packed Tucker Center with his play and personality. Alas, Scottie Barnes played home games in front of a couple thousand people. All in masks. He didn’t get the full Florida State experience, and Florida State didn’t get the full Scottie Barnes experience.

Last year, everyone on the team got hurt and missed multiple games. Anthony Polite, Malik Osborne and on and on and on. It was a team that actually beat Duke at one point, and then lost essentially the entire roster to injury.

You would think after all these bad breaks maybe Hamilton could get a good one? That maybe he was owed one?

Nope!

Basketball gods just keep piling on.

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The best transfer on this current team, a two-time conference defensive player of the year, tears up his knee before preseason practice and is out for the season. The most talented player on the team broke a rule he didn’t even know about — long before he was even committed to Florida State — paid the money back, and is still out for the first 16 games.

To go along with the Jaylan Gainey and Baba Miller situations, center Naheem McLeod went down last week with an Achilles injury. Because why not? That’s three VERY important players — who are 7-4, 6-11 and 6-10 respectively — who aren’t playing for the Seminoles. All three were going to be key players this year, especially Gainey and Miller, who would have completely changed the complexion of this team.

They’re not available though.

Neither is freshman point guard Chandler Jackson, at least for the time being. Because, of course, he’s injured as well. I legit don’t know if it’s because of all the overtime games Florida State has won in a row or those Michael Snaer buzzer-beaters from a decade ago, but the basketball gods need to cool it. Seriously. Enough is enough.

The truth of the matter is that FSU just isn’t a viable team right now. That’s obvious, right?

This is the first 0-3 start the Seminoles have endured since 2000. But at least that team lost to the likes of Ohio State and Florida. Not to Troy and Stetson.

But no matter what the reasoning is, no matter how bad the luck is, you still want to see a better product than this. You expect to see a better product than this, because that’s what Hamilton has given us over the last decade-plus.

Because of depth issues, and frankly some ability issues, Florida State isn’t even an average offensive team right now. I was expecting so much more out of Jalen Warley and Matthew Cleveland this year, and yet the sophomores have been disappointing through three games. Warley had seven turnovers in the loss to Troy, and Cleveland made one basket. And both still struggle mightily to shoot free throws.

There isn’t anyone on the roster (well, the available roster) who can consistently beat a defender off the dribble. Maybe Jackson will be that guy when he gets healthy? But right now, with only one reliable outside shooter (UCF transfer Darin Green) and literally no post players, there is just very little this offense is capable of doing well.

I’d personally like to see Caleb Mills just shoot 20-25 times a game and see what happens. He and Cam’Ron Fletcher are the two best offensive players, but they’re both also going to be exhausted at the end of every game because they have to play 38 minutes.

Freshman Cameron Corhen has the makings of a nice player. There’s a lot to like about his potential. But I honestly don’t know if on a normal Florida State team he would be getting more than 3 to 4 minutes per game. On Monday night, he played 34! I can promise you that was not in the cards when this roster was put together.

He is having to learn on the job. And it’s a steep, steep learning curve.

With only six guys in the rotation (freshman Tom House played five minutes on Monday), the Seminoles are still trying to play the same defense they’ve become known for — full-court, man-to-man, switch-every-screen pressure defense.

But that’s really, really hard to do with only six players. Because FSU is supposed to overwhelm you with depth. That’s why they play the style they play. To wear you down by the end of the game. Instead, the Seminoles are the ones running on fumes in the final five minutes, which is why they keep getting blasted during that stretch in these losses.

Stetson used an 8-1 run in the final three minutes to close out Florida State in the opener. UCF led by double-digits pretty much the entire second half, and Troy went on a game-clinching 12-3 run starting at the 3-minute mark of the second half.

I don’t think that is a coincidence, but I also don’t know what Hamilton can do to solve this issue. Not until (you hope) some of the injured guys come back. Hamilton was asked about playing zone after the loss to Troy, to just help give his players a break, and he bristled at the question, noting that it’s not what they teach and it’s not how they’ve ever played defense since he got here.

That’s fair. You could argue that maybe he needs to adjust to the team he has and not the team he wanted to have, but the truth is, he’s just been dealt an unplayable hand.

This roster — thanks to injuries and a ridiculous, unreasonable ruling by the NCAA — isn’t good enough to win at this level. Not consistently anyway. Either that, or Stetson and Troy are much, much better than we’re giving them credit for.

The Seminoles welcome rival Florida on Friday night. It would be great if they can somehow get one or two injured guys back and find some new life, but short of that, they are absolutely staring 0-4 in the face.

It just makes me sad.

This program was on the cusp of something special in March of 2020.

Leonard Hamilton had himself a truly great team.

And since then, it has been just one kick to the groin after another. To the point that the team is now laid out on the ground, barely able to move at all.

Let’s see if somehow, some way, it can stand back up.

Contact senior writer Corey Clark at [email protected] and follow @Corey_Clark on Twitter.

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