University of North Carolina Athletics
Know Your Opponent: Florida State
January 23, 2015 | Men's Basketball
Florida State (Seminoles.com)
Rankings: No. 140 KenPom, NR AP
Location: Tallahasse, Fla.
2014-15 Record: 10-9, 2-4 ACC
Carolina Series History (Last Meeting): Carolina leads 44-12 (UNC 81, Florida State 75, Feb. 17, 2014, Donald L. Tucker Center)
Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton is closing in on the all-time wins record at FSU, with the Gastonia, North Carolina, native needing just eight more victories to pass J.K. Kennedy for the top spot. He may have to wait one more season to get there however, as he brings one of the weaker teams of his 13-year tenure to Chapel Hill Saturday afternoon.
Gone from last year are seniors Ian Miller, Okaro White and Robert Gilchrist, while leading scorer Aaron Thomas was declared ineligible for the remainder of the season in December. What's left is a team that has struggled on both ends of the floor and has just one win over a team in the KenPom top 100 - a home victory over No. 39 Florida on Dec. 30.
Freshman point guard Xavier Rathan-Mayes has emerged as FSU's most important player in the absence of Thomas, and he is coming off one of his best collegiate performances. In a 59-55 at Clemson Monday, the 6-4 newcomer scored 17 points, handed out nine assists, grabbed five defensive rebounds and added four steals in 39 minutes.
Montay Brandon and Devon Bookert are the top-scoring Seminole returners, and the two juniors are averaging 13.2 and 10.5 points per game, respectively. Bookert is far and away the team's best outside threat (38.7 percent from 3), as no other player on the FSU roster is making more than 27 percent from deep. That includes Rathan-Mayes, who has taken a team-high 83 3-point attempts despite connecting on just 21.7 percent of them.
What the 'Noles do have is size. Florida State is No. 2 nationally behind Kentucky in both effective height and average height, and the lineup features a whopping three 7-footers - 7-3 sophomore Boris Bojanovsky, 7-1 sophomore Michael Ojo and 7-0 graduate student Kiel Turpin. As one might imagine, all three men are pretty effective around the basket, and FSU ranks No. 25 nationally in 2-point percentage and seventh in opponent block percentage. Brandon, who at 6-8 is often a matchup nightmare at small forward, joins Turpin and Bojanovsky in making at least 60 percent of 2s.
Despite all those big bodies, Florida State is not an elite shot-blocking team. Sophomore forward Jarquez Smith is the only FSU player in the top 200 nationally in block percentage, while Bojanovsky is the only player averaging more than one block per game.
The 'Noles are home for four of their next six after Saturday, including their lone meeting with Wake Forest and the rematch with Clemson. FSU has a chance to bank some wins down the stretch as UNC, Duke, Virginia and Louisville only appear one time each on the schedule. Those potential wins will be crucial as FSU battles to avoid the Tuesday play-in round in Greensboro.
