The 9-3, 0-1 Ladies host 11-2, 1-0 Florida State in Cassell Coliseum today at 6 PM. The game will be televised on the ACC Network. FSU and the Hokies are both unranked; but FSU received votes in the Coach's Poll but not the AP Poll. The Seminoles two losses were to Illinois(RV) on Nov 7 and #15 Tennessee on Dec 4.
The Hokies three losses are to #23 Iowa on Nov 10, #24 Michigan on Nov 30 and then #8, now #14 Duke on Dec 8.
FSU last played Dec 19; the Hokies last game was Dec 21. It will be interesting to see how both teams come out after the long layoff.
Florida State is led by 5'8" junior guard Ta'Niya Latson, who averages 27.2 ppg and 4.8 rebounds/game. She shoots 49.8% overall and 45.6% from three. The Seminoles are the more experienced team, starting 2 seniors, 2 juniors and a sophomore. Their bench is four juniors, a grad student and 2 sophomores. Four of the five starters have played their entire career in Tallahassee. Only Guard Carla Viegas transferred from another school. However, their sixth and seventh player are transfers.
The Hokies start two seniors, a junior and 2 sophomores. Their bench is one soph and 5 freshmen.
The Seminoles run a high-powered offense, averaging 94.9 ppg; they allow 65.9 ppg. They shoot 46.1% overall and 35.7% from three. Four players average double digit scoring led by Latson's 27.4 and Timpson at 18.2. Timpson also averages 11 rebounds/game. They make 9 three pointers per game. Their defense causes 19.8 turnovers per game while their offense only commits 10.5.
The Hokies play at a much slower pace scoring 77.3 ppg and allowing 61.5. They shoot 48% overall and 36.6% from three. They only make 6.5 threes per game compared to FSU's 9. They commit 16.1 turnovers per game.
The Hokies are going to have to slow the game down and play very good defense in this game. They are also going to have to cut down on the turnovers. It seems so far that Coach Duffy has put the emphasis on defense; the Ladies are going to get an opportunity to show if they can play that way. The ESPN matchup predictor gives FSU 55.6% expectation of victory.
LET'S GO HOKIES!
Comments
LET'S GO
HOKIES!
The real concern with this one is ball security. FSU averages 25.7 ppg off turnovers. Take that away and you balance the game. The problem there is the Hokies are averaging 16.1 turnovers per game. FSU averages 11 steals which fuels transition basketball. Wenzel and Suffren cannot afford to be sloppy with the ball at the top of the key.
Welp... 8 turnovers in nine minutes...
Ran into CMD in the Charlotte airport Sunday night. She was rocking a hoodie with the old style VT logo.
I yelled Go Hokies and she came over and said "Are you Tech people?", lol. She seemed pretty flustered - must've been late on a connection.
Wenzel with 4 turnovers in 4 minutes.
Yeah gotta clean those up. Not just her either.
Averaging a to per minute. On pace for 40.
That escalated quickly.
And it's not good D by FSU. It's all us.
Missing wild shots inside we are not under control in the paint.
Feels like this is a totally winnable game if we can just figure out how to play offense without turning the ball over and do a little better job keeping the ball in front of us on defense.
15 of their 31 points off turnovers already.
I love Wenzel's emotion but her ball security IQ needs a major upgrade
Unbelievably bad ball security so far that has been the difference
Not helping that they can't make an open shot.
24 of 52 points off turnovers. Noles shooting 60%.
Killing them on the boards but just keep handing them the ball back. 20 turnovers in 27 minutes leading to 30 points.
This is getting hard to watch. Lazy pass after lazy pass after sloppy ball handling and wild shots out of control. And FSU can't miss.
Hard not to miss on breakaway layup after steals.
FSU has 50 points in the paint.
breakaway layups off turnovers count as paint points too
22 points so far if my count is right.
Did not have the Ladies losing to FSU by more than the men lost to Duke on my bingo card but it's headed that way.
I think Kenny left the cupboard pretty bare.
That was two fouls in a row that officials said were clean and let FSU have both.
Couldn't even get the Biscuit basket at the end
Well, there's a lot of good, coachable moments related to all of the turnovers. No one else is going to be as tenacious as FSU in that regard, but CMD can use the loss to make us better.
It was pretty ugly at Cassell. Somebody mentioned it was the worst loss for the Lady Hokies EVER. We started tracking how many turnovers by Carleigh. It was pretty high. We need Suffern back and she is still in that sling.
Kenny set the program back 5 years minimum. Thanks to him. On the bright side, he couldn't win in the ACC either when he took the job.
Suffren is out for the season. Due to have surgery.
Apparently the concession booths ran out of food around halftime on top of everything else
Sounds exactly like the Snoop Dogg bowl in Tucson... concessions and merch were a shit show.
Only had about 25% of the concessions open to start with. Lines were 30-40 people at each before game. I went out at end of 1st quarter, still 30 people in line. So I waited my turn.
Had a good crowd so concessions were woefully lacking from the get-go. Probably another penny pinching move by the AD. With a 4pm start and game running through into the dinner hour, not sure the thinking of the AD, but it was another poor decision.
Half the concession stands were closed to start with. The subway booth ran out of subs before the game even started.
Per the Roanoke Times writeup...
All around bad game from the ladies.
Whit Babcock is fucking killing it as an AD with regards to football, mens hoops and womens hoops I tell ya. Fucking killing it in the revenue sports.
I also lost any respect for the FSU head coach. Up by 30, she didn't pull her starters until the last minute.
Padding the stats for her star players, especially Latson.