Florida State men drop third straight with 88-72 loss to South Florida
In each of its past two games, the Florida State men’s basketball team blew double-digit second-half leads. On Saturday, the Seminoles never had a lead to lose.
South Florida led from start to finish, and FSU was never able to get closer than nine points in the second half, as the Seminoles dropped to 4-4 on the season with an 88-72 blowout loss to the Bulls at the Orange Bowl Classic in Sunrise.
South Florida, which had lost at home to Maine and Central Michigan, improves to 3-4 on the season.
The Bulls jumped out to an 8-0 lead to start the game, and after a quick 7-0 run by the Seminoles, the rest of the half — and game for that matter — was dominated by South Florida.
The Bulls, who averaged five made 3-pointers a game coming into Saturday, made six in the first half alone and finished with a season-high 12 on 23 attempts.
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Florida State, meanwhile, was just 2-of-11 from 3 in the first half and couldn’t get any offensive rhythm at all until the game was well out of reach.
After trailing by 19 early in the second half, a 3-pointer by Darin Green Jr. got the Seminoles to within nine points at 50-41 with 13:15 left in the game. The Bulls then immediately responded with an 8-0 run that turned into a 24-7 run, which completely blew the game open as Florida State found itself staring at a 26-point deficit with 5:17 left.
From the point Green made that 3, the Seminoles made just one basket over the next eight minutes.
With the game well out of reach in the final few minutes, Florida State was able to hit 8 of 9 shots from the floor during that stretch. But it was much too little too late.
Jamir Watkins led the Seminoles with 15 points and Baba Miller added 11 points (despite hitting 4-of-13 from the free-throw line) and 11 rebounds. Nobody else was in double-figures.
The Seminoles play again next Saturday vs. SMU at the Tucker Center.
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