This past Sunday the 22nd of Feb. 2015 with the NCAA BB seasoning winding down as the March Madness Tournament draws closer, we saw the unranked Florida State Seminoles 15-13 playing at the No.2 Virginia Cavaliers 25-1 in an Atlantic Coast Conference game that was played at the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Virginia and tip-off time for the game was at 6:30 PM ET and seen on ESPN TV.
The scoring in the 1st half of the game saw the Seminoles of Florida State scoring 21 points while the No. 2 Cavaliers of Virginia scored 22 thus the game went to half time with the Cavaliers in the lead by 1 point. In the 2nd half of the game the Cavaliers scored 29 points while the Seminoles only managed 20 points, thus FSU lost the game 41-51 to the Cavaliers of Virginia losing by 10 points.
Even as it was a NCAA BB game, the scoring still seemed to be very low, as the Top 5 performers for the Seminoles of FSU were guard-Rathan-Mayers-13 points and 4 rebounds, center-Smith-8 points 3 rebounds off the bench, guard-Brandon-6 points 8 rebounds, forward-Cofer-5 points 3 rebounds and center-Ojo 4 points 1 rebound.
For the Cavaliers of Virginia their top 5 performers in the game were forward-Gill-14 points 9 rebounds, forward-Atkins-10 points 2 rebounds, guard-Brogdon-9 points 4 rebounds, guard-Shayok-7 points 6 rebounds off the bench and guard-Perrantes-3 points and 2 rebounds.
Comparing the two team’s statistics apart from the scoring, the Seminoles made 15 of their 46 attempted field goals for .326 % completion rate, while the Cavaliers made 18 of their 41 attempted field goals for .439% completion rate. On 3-Point attempts the Seminoles made 4 of 19 attempts for a .211% completion rate, while the Cavaliers only made 1 of their 11 attempts for a .091% completion rate. For Foul shots the Seminoles made 7 of their 12 attempts for .583% completion rate, and the Cavaliers made 14 of the 27 foul shot attempts for .519% completion rate. FSU committed 20 fouls while Virginia committed just 9 fouls in the game, with neither team committing a Technical nor a flagrant foul.
The team leaders for points were Rathan-Mayes for FSU with 13 points and for UVA it was Gill also with 13 points. In Rebounds it was Brandon for FSU with 8 and for UVA it was Gill with 9 rebounds. On Assists for FSU it was Bookert with 3 and for UVA it was Perrantes with 3 assists. For Steals it was Brandon with 2 and for UVA it was Atkins with 4. On Blocked shots for FSU it was Smith with just 1 block and for UVA it was Atkins also with 1 blocked shot.
This ACC game was very close from the start and for most of the game, and with just over 10 minutes left in the game, the Seminole took the lead after Smith made a nice jumper, but after that did not make a score during the remaining minutes of the game as the Cavaliers defense, which is a leader at scoring defense at an average of 50.7 points per game tightened up on FSU’s offense.
For those that Bet on College Basketball at a Sportsbook, that same defense we saw tighten up on FSU in the late minutes of this game has kept their opponents scoreless in the last 5 minutes of a game, some 24 different times this season. Coming up next for the Seminole on next Wednesday is the Hurricanes in Miami, Florida while the Cavaliers play at Wake Forest also on Wednesday!