Soaring Seminoles host No. 3 North Carolina in battle of top teams in ACC standings

The Florida State men’s basketball team isn’t ranked in any of the national polls, and the Seminoles are still a long shot to make the NCAA Tournament. Yet after winning eight of their last 10 games, their outlook is beginning to look much different than it did just one month ago.

“I think what we’ve shown in the last 10 games is our identity,” junior point guard Primo Spears said, adding that he believes the Seminoles have begun to, “put the country on notice.”

Spears and the ‘Noles will get an even greater opportunity to do just that Saturday at 2 p.m., when No. 3 North Carolina rolls into the Tucker Center.

Thanks to its impressive January turnaround, Florida State is currently in second place in the ACC standings with a 6-2 record. The only ACC squad with a better record is UNC, which boasts a perfect 8-0 mark in conference play.

This actually will be the second time the teams have squared off this season. In early December, Florida State went to Chapel Hill, N.C, and came out on the wrong side of a 78-70 defeat.

Of course, that probably feels like a lifetime ago for FSU’s players and coaches. At the time, the Seminoles were still short-handed from a roster standpoint and collapsed after opening a 14-point lead early in the second half.

Spears had to watch from the sideline because he was not yet eligible. Center Cameron Corhen was out with a broken toe. Fellow post player Jaylan Gainey was playing just his second game back after missing more than a year due to a catastrophic knee injury. And forward Cam’Ron Fletcher went down with a season-ending injury during the game.

In what seemed like an instant, the Tar Heels went on a 22-0 run and took complete control of the contest. With slightly less than 9:30 remaining, Florida State was still clinging to a 56-48 advantage. Five minutes of game time later, the Tar Heels were suddenly up 70-56.

The Seminoles faltered not only because of their lack of depth, but also because they had no answers to UNC’s full-court press in the second half.

“Normally when you press us, we increase the score,” Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton said. “At that point, no one had really pressed us. And we just didn’t execute our press offense. We just didn’t handle that very well.”

That is one of several areas where the Seminoles have shown major improvement in recent weeks.

During the later stages of Wednesday’s impressive 85-69 win at Syracuse, the Seminoles carved up the Orange’s full-court press and turned it into multiple easy dunks and baskets in transition.

Having Spears available clearly helps in that regard — he is another seasoned ball-handler and possesses exceptional quickness and speed — but the Georgetown transfer also credited Florida State’s coaches with devising schemes that help in those situations.

“I think we should [welcome it],” Spears said of pressure from opponents. “Coach Ham has always had that confidence — that if people do press us, we’ll get out in jailbreaks in transition.”

Of course, Hamilton said the Tar Heels won’t even need to bother employing that strategy again if Florida State can’t put up a better fight than many of UNC’s recent opponents. During this nine-game win streak, the Heels have won every game by at least 10 points.

UNC (16-3 overall) is led once again by veterans R.J. Davis and Armando Bacot; Davis is averaging 21.0 points per game and shooting 41.7 percent from 3-point range, while Bacot averages 14.1 points and 10.3 rebounds.

As a team, the Tar Heels also rank 20th nationally in field goal percentage defense and No. 23 in rebounding margin.

“They’ve become one of the premier defensive teams in the country,” Hamilton said.

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Even so, the Seminoles bring a tremendous amount of confidence into the showdown of the ACC’s top two teams (from a record standpoint). They remember how they built a 14-point lead in Chapel Hill less than two months ago, and they know how much better they are today than they were back then.

“I think we match up great,” Spears said. “I think our size kind of gives them problems. … Their press affected us. But we’ve grown from that moment. It was a growing moment in the season.”

Because Florida State struggled so much during the non-conference portion of its schedule, with the lowlight being a home loss to Lipscomb, the Seminoles know they will have their work cut out to even have a chance of making the NCAA Tournament.

But they also know a victory over the No. 3-ranked Tar Heels would certainly go a long way toward that objective.

“Top two teams in the league, ESPN … this is what we’ve been preparing for,” Spears said. “And we have a little bad taste in our mouth coming off that comeback win that they had. So I think it’s going to live up to the hype for sure.”

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