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The end of an era: Florida State falls to Syracuse 66-62 in ACC Tournament as Hamilton's career officially comes to an end

On3 imageby:Corey Clark•about 14 hours•

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FSU
Leonard Hamilton walks the sidelines of his final game as Florida State men's basketball head coach. (Photo: Bob Donnan / Imagn Images)

The ceremonial end to Leonard Hamilton’s career at Florida State was on Saturday in front of family and friends and a whole lot of former players at the Tucker Center.

The official end was Tuesday night in Charlotte in the first round of the ACC Tournament.

Trailing essentially from start to finish, the Seminoles weren’t able to build off the regular-season finale win over SMU on Saturday and fell to Syracuse 66-62.

There was no magical postseason run for the veteran head coach in his final ACC Tournament. There was no lightning in a bottle. Just a thud. And thus the Leonard Hamilton Era came to an end.

Luke Loucks, who was officially introduced as Hamilton’s replacement in a press conference on Monday, was in attendance on Tuesday night in Charlotte, watching the 2024-2025 Florida State team shoot 40.4 percent from the field, 2 of 10 from three-point range and trail for 38 minutes against a Syracuse team that was 13-18 coming into the game.

Malique Ewin, who scored a career-high 26 points on Saturday, finished with just seven points against Syracuse, going 35 minutes of game action between baskets. Jamir Watkins, a second-team All-ACC Selection, led the Seminoles with 16 points and 11 rebounds in his final game in garnet and gold.

Daquan Davis and Jerry Deng both scored 10 points off the bench for Florida State, which trailed by as many as 16 points in the second half. The Seminoles used multiple runs to trim the Orange lead to single digits, and despite Syracuse star J.J. Starling scoring 19 of his game-high 27 points in the second half, FSU was still very much in the game in the final seconds.

A steal by Davis led to a putback by Ewin with 9.5 seconds left to cut the Orange lead to just one point. But Syracuse, which struggled mightily all night from the line, buried the next two free throws and then fouled Davis before he could get up a three-point attempt with 2.5 seconds left.

He made the first free throw, intentionally missed the second, but Syracuse grabbed the rebound and, after being fouled, made both free throws to wrap up the first-round win.

Florida State finishes the season with a 17-15 record.

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