Florida State Just Didn't Show up Against No. 5 Duke

Florida State was hosting the No. 5 team in the country and a team they knocked off two out of three times last year in Duke.  Or were they?  At least Duke knew they had a game today because the Seminoles just decided to not show up.

Duke absolutely embarrassed Florida State on their own court in a game which most people thought would be a good one.  An 18-2 run to start the game for Duke just took the Seminoles and their fans out of the game and the Blue Devils would capitalize.

A 19 point victory for the Blue Devils in which their lead never got smaller than 18-7 proved total domination by Duke, but also a total let down by Florida State.

Coming into the game at 12-8 and 4-3 in ACC play, Leonard Hamilton’s team needed a resume building win today.  Instead they ended the game with a confidence destroying loss and maybe one that makes it very difficult for them to make the tournament.

Their star and clutch player, Michael Snaer, the one who beat Duke at the buzzer in front of the Cameron Crazies, didn’t score the entire first half.  In a game where the first half created too much of a deficit for FSU to even come back, they needed their better players to step up.  They did not and it led to an ugly 22 point half in which they let up 42 points.

The second half was a different story on the offensive end, but all the points the Seminoles scored were basically just to make their stats look better.

A team that won with defense last year, forgot what defense was today.  The Seminoles let up 79 points in the game and Duke basically called off the dogs for the last five minutes.  That is pitiful defense.  Open shot after open shot they allowed and you can’t do that against Duke.

Seth Curry kept hitting open shots because he was left wide open, no one ever got out on him.  Curry, Quinn Cook, and Rasheed Sulaimon combined to shoot 11-17 from behind the arc.  When you leave those three shooters open, they are going to knock down open shots and on their rare misses, Duke would just get the offensive rebound and settle for a lay-up.

You have to give Duke credit for knocking down open looks and for their performance, but Florida State simply just didn’t come to play today and paid for it.