UCF Dominates on Boards as FSU Drops Second Straight

This was one of the worst rebounding efforts I have ever seen. It's one thing to be in a tight rebounding battle with Stetson, where you lose by a rebound or two. Then there's a game like tonight, where you just get absolutely smoked on the boards like Florida State did. We'll talk about it more in a little bit, but Florida State has to get something figured out going forward: defensively they're not finishing possessions with a rebound, and things are getting way too stagnant offensively. Of FSU's 54 total points, 28 were in the fastbreak.

FSU kept things close for the most part in the first half, but a 7-0 run for the Knights in the last three minutes of the half gave them a 39-29 lead at the break. Things never really got better than that.

The 'Noles hit the first shot of the second half to make it 39-31, before UCF opened the game up with a 9-0 run over the next 5 minutes. FSU closed the lead back down to 11 with 12 minutes left before UCF got the lead right back up to 17 over the next few minutes and that would pretty much do it, as UCF would go on to win 68-54. This isn't what Florida State fans expected heading into the season, and I'm sure no one on the team did either.

An already decimated Florida State team received no favors throughout the game. Naheem McLeod went down with an apparent ankle/Achilles injury in the first half that would rule him out for the rest of the game (and is reportedly out 6-8 weeks), and Matthew Cleveland would foul out with over 6 minutes left in the game, leaving FSU with 6 available players.

UCF snagged 24 offensive rebounds, the most FSU has allowed since a January 2014 game in which Duke grabbed 26. 52 total rebounds and the -30 rebounding disadvantage is the largest I can find in the game logs history of sports-reference.com, which has game logs dating back to 2010. Safe to say, it's the worst rebounding performance in the Leonard Hamilton era. Simply inexcusable.

The Knights were led by Jahylon Young, who had 17 points, 4 assists, and 3 rebounds, and freshman Taylor Hendricks had a great game as well, with 15 points and 12 rebounds. 5 different UCF players had multiple offensive rebounds. They also attempted 38 layups, which is a lot, and somehow only made 15 of them. Imagine what this game could've been if they made even half of their LAYUPS.

The overall defense was there for Florida State, they just could not finish defensive possessions with a rebound, allowing an offensive rebound 63.2% of the time. Can't win ballgames with that kind of outlier. Still, they forced UCF into 20 turnovers, turning those into 18 points, and had 10 steals. That was something we didn't see against Stetson, and at least there was something optimistic to take away from this game defensively.

Offensively... well... it wasn't great. FSU scored just .844 points per possession, just after UCF allowed UNC Asheville to score 1.154 PPP. The 'Noles were just 10/21 on layups, 22/56 overall, and had three separate 5 minute stretches where they didn't make a field goal.

Only two players took more than 10 shots for FSU. Darin Green Jr had 17 points against his former team on 7/14 from the floor, and Cam'Ron Fletcher had 11 points on just 5/14 shooting. They have to find a way to get Darin Green more shots. He's such a talented shot-maker, but he's forcing contested shots, when they should be coming in the flow of the offense. On the flip-side, where were Caleb Mills and Matthew Cleveland? I think it's kind of telling when a few players are playing with two fouls at the end of the first half, and Cleveland was the only one of them not playing.

Coach Hamilton and the rest of the coaching staff are going to have to find ways to be competitive. Even if it's completely changing the way you play basketball, I don't see a way FSU can continue playing the system they're used to playing and winning basketball games.

FSU is back to home on Monday against Troy, still seeking their first win.

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