Seminoles fall to 1-9
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton paid Kihei Clark a huge compliment in the handshake line after the fifth-year point guard helped lead No. 3 Virginia over the Seminoles 62-57.
“I’ll be glad when you go,” Hamilton said he told Clark, who scored 18 points Saturday. “He smiled. See, I gotcha, though. That’s what he was thinking.”
The Seminoles coach wasn’t finished.
“He didn’t lose his poise. And for a little guy, his strength is his IQ. You know, we can talk about his dribbling skills and hitting his free throws and big shots, but he makes great decisions. He doesn’t really get rattled that much. He’s like a coach on the floor,” Hamilton said.
“I mean, he impacts every game he plays in because of his high basketball IQ . ... He’s almost flawless as a point guard and one of those guys that don’t come along very often,” he said.
The Cavaliers (7-0) had to overcome poor shooting (18 of 51, 35.3%) to win their 15th straight Atlantic Coast Conference opener but needed a 22-9 run to start the second half to take control. They turned a 22-21 halftime deficit into a 43-31 lead, and then had to hold on at the end as the Seminoles (1-9) tried to avoid their fifth consecutive loss.
The start to the second half was very important because, Clark said, “to get that big enough lead you can get makes it easier on yourself later in the stretch.”
Florida State scored the next six points after Virginia’s run, then didn’t score again for five minutes as the Cavaliers rebuilt their advantage.
The Seminoles got within 55-50 on Matthew Cleveland’s jumper with a minute left, within four on Darin
Green Jr.’s jumper with 40 seconds left, and within three after Caleb Mills’ acrobatic three-point play with 7.5 seconds left.
Reece Beekman, who hit two free throws with 34 seconds left for Virginia, hit two more with 7 seconds to play, allowing the Cavaliers to hold on.
Last year, it was Cleveland’s buzzer-beating jumper that gave the Seminoles a 64-63 victory at John Paul Jones Arena, something Virginia coach Tony Bennett reminded him of, also in the handshake line.
“I said, ‘You’re the guy that made the shot last year against us, right?’ ” Bennett said. “And he smiled and I said, ‘I thought it might be coming down to something like that again.’ ”