Game Preview: Virginia Tech at Florida State
Florida State got smacked Wednesday night at Georgia Tech. Then they come home and news comes out that Malik Osborne will be out for the season. It hasn't been the greatest of days, despite coming off of a really great stretch the week before. They have to move past it all to come play Virginia Tech, who arguably has the toughest post matchup in the ACC.
Luckily for the 'Noles, the NCAA Tournament bubble kind of fell apart over the past week. They'll still gave to continue to win games, especially at home, if they want to continue building a resume and getting over the Georgia Tech loss. Virginia Tech will be a good place to start.
Saturday will be the 59th all-time matchup between these two, and FSU owns the series record 36-22, also having won six straight in this series.
This game will be at 3pm on ABC, live from the Donald L Tucker Center in Tallahassee, Florida.
Virginia Tech Hokies (10-10, 2-7) Breakdown
For those that follow me on Twitter (which is likely most of you), you know what I'm about to say. I said before the season in my ACC preview that Virginia Tech was fool's gold, and newsflash, Virginia Tech is fraudulent. You see their record above; 10-10 overall and 2-7 in ACC play. Now, get ready for this: The Hokies are 63rd in NET (ahead of Miami, who VT just lost to), and 44th in KenPom (ahead of 17-2 Providence; a team that has beaten Xavier, Wisconsin, Texas Tech, and Seton Hall). I just don't understand it, the computers absolutely love this team.
From what I can tell, it's mostly because of they win or lose. When they win, it's by a lot. 7 of their 10 wins (including over a solid St Bonaventure team) are by 20 points or more. When they lose, it's usually pretty close. 6 of their 10 losses are by 5 points or fewer. They still have ten losses though. At some point there has to be human interference on this. With my luck though, Virginia Tech will somehow come into this game and win to make me eat my words.
This is a mid-major team in every sense of the fashion except for the university associated with the team. They play like a mid-major (shoot a lot of 3s), the roster doesn't have much size (no one that plays more than 8 minutes per game is taller than 6'9"), don't have a lot of depth (every member of starting 5 plays 29+ minutes and really only play 8 guys), and play a lot of games close, but struggle to win those close games. It makes sense given Coach Mike Young's background, but he's really failed to recruit at an ACC level, and the talented players he did have transferred out. It's a tough situation, really.
Virginia Tech plays extremely slow. Not UVA levels of slow, but they're not too far off. For reference, UVA, as always, is the slowest team in the country at 58 possessions per game. Virginia Tech is 343rd out 358 teams with 62.7 possessions per game. This is a team that runs their sets, doesn't get too sped up, and really works to get the best shot possible, which is ideally a 3. 37% of their points and 40% of their overall shots have come from distance, which makes this a tough team to guard. And they are efficient with it, shooting 46.4% from the floor, 39.4% from 3 (6th nationally), and 74.5% from the charity stripe.
Some of their shooting numbers are absurd: 10 games shooting above 40% from 3, 3 games shooting 50% or better from 3, and just 5 games below 34% from 3. As I'll mention in my keys to the game, it seems like the magic number for 3 is 42%, and the Hokies are 8-1 in games where they shoot 42% or better in a game.
Defensively, they are exclusively a man-to-man team, which should make FSU fans a lot more comfortable. They may surprise the 'Noles in this game and throw a zone out, but there's really not any history of Mike Young doing it. Since he got to Blacksburg in the '19/'20 season, the Hokies have played a total of 10 zone possessions, according to Synergy Sports. They have a great 3-point shooting defense, but I believe a team like FSU can overwhelm them and get to the rim at ease when they want.
The engine for this team is the frontcourt tandem of Keve Aluma and Justyn Mutts. Both are great rebounders, great passers and shooters for their size, and are the two leading shot-blockers. Aluma may be the only one on the team where you'd rather him shoot than drive, but he's more than capable of scoring from anywhere on the floor. Mutts is a high energy player, and is the leading rebounder on the team.
The other three starters; Hunter Cattoor, Storm Murphy, and Nahiem Alleyne are all really talented shooters, all shooting 35% from 3 or above on 4+ attempts per game. Aluma and Mutts do all the dirty work setting off ball screens, driving to the basket, and distributing to these open shooters.
These five have all started all 20 games, and they really only have three guys that see more than 10 minutes off of the bench: Darius Maddox (shooting 48.5% from 3 currently), David N'Guessan (backup big, good rebounder), and Sean Pedulla (57.1% from 3). You might see a little more Maddox in this game since he has good size at 6'5" to try and match up with Florida State.
Florida State Seminoles (13-6, 6-3) Breakdown
So, where does Florida State go from here? Malik Osborne may not have been the best basketball player, but you're kidding yourself if you believe he wasn't the most important player on this team. He's the heartbeat of the team, does all the dirty work, and for a while was the best 3-point shooter on the team as their 5-man. That's impossible to replace given the rest of the roster, unless they want to experiment with John Butler at the 5 (they really should for this game. If they could put Jonathan Isaac at the 5 in 16/17, Butler can play it too).
On the other hand, FSU has kind of been playing without Malik the last few weeks anyways. Dating back to the Wake Forest game, the first game after he hurt his ankle against NC State, he shot a total of 8 for 43 from the floor, 2 of 20 from 3, and didn't once score in double digits after doing it in 9 of the first 11 games. He was still able to rebound really well, and knew where to be on defense, two things FSU is going to have to figure out how to replace.
I'm curious to see if the team changes their defensive identity at all, like maybe going from switching 1-5 to switching 1-4. I doubt it, since you generally don't change your team's identity in the thick of conference play and Hamilton has made it clear this is what he wants to do, but it could make a lot of sense for the roster's make-up.
There's been a lot of discussion amongst fans about Cam'Ron Fletcher's lack of playing time recently. After playing 17 or more minutes in 8 of his first 11 games, he's only played more than 12 minutes once in the eight games since. It's not exactly an accident, honestly. He's been dealing with a couple of minor injuries, but he also hasn't performed as well as we know he's capable of. Let's just look at his +/- in his last few games: Georgia Tech (-12, 9 minutes), at Miami (+4, 6 minutes), UNF (+2, 11 minutes), Duke (+6, 16 minutes), at Syracuse (-11, 10 minutes, him and Ballard were only players in negative), Miami (+3, 11 minutes).
Plus/minus is far from the perfect statistic, but it gives you a little bit of a story. You don't want to take one game as the end all, be all. You can use a stretch of games as a trend though. And outside of the Duke game, he's either making a minor positive impact, or completely tanking it. It's not all his fault, as it has some to do with the players around him as well. But there's reason for the madness. He plays hard, something this team will need with Osborne out, but he also just needs to play into the principles on defense, especially off the ball.
I'm expecting Florida State to adjust their defense just a little bit. Usually off the ball, guys are 33% of the way between their man and the ball when they're a pass away. I wouldn't be surprised to see them stay a little more attached to their men, maybe about 25% in gaps. And on drives, instead of digging all the way down, I'm expecting more stunts and recovers. I could be wrong, but it's what I'm looking for. Hopefully, guys stay disciplined in the gameplans.
Injury Report
It was announced Friday the Malik Osborne would miss the rest of the season with an ankle injury, and really, it was long overdue. You could tell he just had no lift on his shot, had no athletic explosion... it just looked like he was always in pain.
Coach Hamilton said Friday that Caleb Mills and a couple of others were dealing with tonsillitis, which would make sense given that Mills played just 3 minutes in the second half against Georgia Tech.
Projected Starters
Florida State
G: RayQuan Evans
G: Caleb Mills
G: Anthony Polite
F: John Butler
C: Naheem McLeod
Virginia Tech
G: Storm Murphy
G: Hunter Cattoor
G: Nahiem Alleyne
F: Justyn Mutts
F: Keve Aluma
Keys to the Game
3-Point Defense
A couple of these keys are going to tie into the last game, as well as the game they're heading into, starting with 3-point defense. Part of the growing pains with this young team is their ability to defend the 3-point line. FSU has been one of the worst teams nationally, allowing teams to shoot around 35.6% from 3. They're now going up against a team that is 6th nationally in 3-point percentage at 39.4%.
Virginia Tech only has 5 games all season shooting below 34% from 3. They can shoot the peel off of the ball. They have 10 games shooting 40% or better, and 3 games shooting 50% or better from 3. And it's not like they're just picking and choosing their spots, they fire away. About 40% of their shots and 37% of their points on the season are from 3. The magic number seems to be about 42% from 3, which is an absurd number. On the season, they're 2-9 in games where they shoot below 42% from 3. FSU would probably prefer to keep them in 35% range, if possible. It's not a team you can run off of the line, like you'd ideally have.
Foul Differential
This mainly applies to the last game. Florida State simply allowed Georgia Tech, a team who is not good at drawing fouls, to get to the free throw line way too much. Virginia Tech is similar, as they are in the bottom-15 in free throw attempts per field goal attempts. It comes from them being a jump shooting team, but you can't allow them to get many extra points, as it's a big reason why GT upset the 'Noles. Play good defense without fouling. The biggest challenge will be doing that against Keve Aluma, who is going to be a mismatch nightmare against FSU's bigs. He moves extremely well at 6'9", and often plays on the perimeter.
Offensive Rebounding
The magic number here for FSU is 30%. If they can get to a 30% offensive rebounding rate, they're going to give themselves a good chance to win this game, as Virginia Tech is 3-6 in games where they allow a 30% ORB rate, and those three wins were against NC State, St Bonaventure, and Maine. The issue for Florida State is doing it without the presence of Malik Osborne, who by himself had an offensive rebounding rate of 9.1%. Naheem McLeod has been very good on the offensive glass in limited minutes, but guys like Tanor Ngom, John Butler, Matthew Cleveland, and Cam'Ron Fletcher are going to have to really attack the glass.
Game Prediction
Florida State is a 2-point favorite, with an over/under of 132.5.
FSU needs a bounce back. Virginia Tech needs a win. It's a battle of what should be two desperate teams, just for much different reasons. I need to continue my agenda of Virginia Tech being fraudulent, though.
'Noles 68-60
