Game Preview: Florida State at Wake Forest

Ladies and gentlemen, he’s free. Baba Miller is free. It took too long, but Florida State is thrilled to have Miller in the rotation, and he’s going to be thrown right into the fire, starting out with a road ACC game on Tobacco Road. How he adjusts on the fly in the middle of the season is going to be fascinating to watch.

This game will be at 9 pm on the ACC Network, live from Lawrence Joel Veterans Coliseum in Winston Salem, NC.

Wake Forest Demon Deacons Breakdown

Wake Forest currently sits with an 11-5 record, perfectly mirroring FSU's 5-11 record, though both teams hold a 3-2 record in conference play. At home, Wake has been 8-0, with impressive wins over a short-handed Duke and most recently Virginia Tech. They picked up some quality wins over Wisconsin and Georgia, but also dropped a head-scratcher in overtime against Loyola Marymount early in the season.

As a team, Wake Forest is shooting 36.7% from 3, 46.3% from the floor, and 74.3% from the free throw line. It's a very efficient shooting team, though they're middle of the pack in turnovers, do a poor job on the offensive glass, but mainly do a good job of defensive rebounding. Their defense is middle of the pack, doesn't do a particularly good job of blocking shots or stealing the ball in live situations, so as long as FSU doesn't have any mental errors, this should hopefully be a clean game.

Leading the Demon Deacons in scoring is old friend Tyree Appleby, who began his career at Cleveland State (before Dennis Gates got there), transferred to Florida, and has used his graduate transfer to finish his career at Wake Forest. He's back to playing how he was at Cleveland State, where he was averaging 17.2 PPG and 5.6 APG on 42.0/38.9/78.0 shooting splits. At Florida, he was really hit or miss. He'd follow up solid performances with absolute stinkers. In two career games against Florida State, he has a total of 11 points, 6 assists, and 6 turnovers on 17 total shots and 53 minutes. If he has a similar type performance to those first two games, FSU will have a good chance, but I doubt that's going to happen. This season he's averaging 17.9 PPG and 5.8 APG with shooting splits of 48.9/46.4/83.3. His biggest Achilles' Heel has always been turnovers, as he has a career turnover rate of 21.1%.

Cameron Hildreth has taken a massive jump from his freshman season last year and will be in conversations for ACC's Most Improved Player. He went from 3.9 PPG and 2.9 RPG in 13 MPG last season to 11.8 PPG, 6.4 RPG, and 2.8 APG in 30 MPG. His shooting from 3 could use some work, but he's a crafty player, able to use his size in the post as a guard and is much quicker than you expect. He reminds me a lot of Golden State Warriors guard Donte Divincenzo.

Damari Monsanto is a 3-point specialist, with 75% of his attempts coming from deep at more than 7 per game. He's currently making them at a 38.6% clip, but he has range from as soon as he crosses half-court. At 6'6", he also possesses good defensive versatility and averages a steal and a half per game.

Andrew Carr has started every game for Wake Forest, and is a good scorer on the inside at 10.4 PPG on 56.6% inside the arc. At the 4 or 5, he's able to step out and hit 3s occasionally, but it's not a strength whatsoever. He's not overly athletic either, so I expect FSU to go at him on defense every so often.

Daivien Williamson has emerged as a spot starter and 3-point threat, shooting 41.3% from deep on 4.5 attempts per game. Matthew Marsh has been a great lob threat for Appleby and Hildreth down low. You'll also see Bobi Klintman and Zach Keller play some decent minutes.

Florida State Seminoles Breakdown

As mentioned earlier, Baba Miller will be playing in his first regular season game as he comes off an NCAA suspension. Even if the reasons behind it were ridiculous, he’s back and he’s ready to set the world on fire. He’s put on some muscle in the training room, stayed in shape, and has been a big part of the scout team, so he’s been constantly learning, and constantly seeing what he can get better at. At the same time, it is going to be his first college game and it’s in the middle of ACC play. It may take him a few games to get into game shape and get used to the speed of the game, and he’s likely going to make some freshman mistakes. But I’m still expecting him to play around 20 minutes and give some much-needed depth to this team.

He’s joining a team that sits 3-2 in ACC play with a difficult schedule coming up: at Wake Forest, Virginia, at Notre Dame, at Pitt (who is quietly 4-1 in ACC play before playing Duke tonight), Miami. If FSU can find a way to go 3-2 across these games it better, it can set them up for when the schedule eases up a little after those five games. FSU’s only hope of postseason play revolves around their ACC Tournament chances, but it’d be nice to get in a groove before then.

Matthew Cleveland has recorded five straight double-doubles, can he make it six against Wake’s front line? He’s likely going to play more at the 3 in this game and going forward with Miller returning. It’ll be interesting to see how that impacts his production, especially rebounding.

The game against Georgia Tech didn’t exactly start out the best way, as the Yellow Jackets started out 8/9 and had a 21-13 lead just 7 minutes in. FSU’s offense wasn’t the problem, they just couldn’t get any stops. For the next 28 minutes, Georgia Tech was just 10/40, while FSU’s offense stayed hot and opened up a nearly 20-point lead on their way to a 75-64 win.

Injury Report

Jaylan Gainey is out for the season with an ACL injury.

Cam’Ron Fletcher is out for the season with a knee injury.

Jeremiah Bembry has been seen in a boot, though his injury isn’t entirely known.

Projected Starters

Wake Forest

G: Tyree Appleby

G: Cameron Hildreth

F: Damari Mansanto

F: Andrew Carr

F: Matthew Marsh

Florida State

G: Jalen Warley

G: Caleb Mills

G: Darin Green Jr

F: Matthew Cleveland

F: Cameron Corhen

Keys to the Game

Pressure

When Wake Forest turns it over on 21% of their possessions or more, they’re just 3-4. Tyree Appleby especially is going to see a ton of ball pressure, as he has a career turnover rate of 21.1%, and is coughing it up more than 3 times a game. If FSU can turn those turnovers into transition points, it’ll help them a ton. Louisville was able to get back into the game after being down as many as 22 by trapping and double-teaming to force quick decisions. Don't be surprised to see FSU bring a similar game plan.

Baba Miller’s Minutes

It’s going to be fascinating to see how FSU integrates Miller into the lineup, as they’ve been pretty set on playing their top 6 guys for 20+ minutes. Does Miller jump into that echelon of 20-25 minutes (which I’m expecting), or do they bring him along slowly? The team is really going to benefit from his size and playmaking, but it’s always tough when someone gets inserted into the lineup halfway through a season.

3-Point Defense

Wake is shooting 36.7% from deep as a team, led by Appleby and Daivien Williamson who are above 40% on more than 4 attempts per game. If you let them get going early, this could be over before it starts. Against Louisville, they hit nine 3s in the first half, which was a big reason they were up early in that game.

Game Prediction

Wake Forest is favored by 8.5 points with an over/under of 150.5.

It’ll be interesting to see what kind of difference, if any, Baba Miller’s return makes on the team. Worst case, it’s more depth and versatility. Best case, he’s a weapon of a multitude that attacks in various different ways and defenses don’t know how to defend him since there’s not a ton of film on him. Wake should win this since it’s on the road, but it may be closer than expected.

Wake 78 FSU 72

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