The Cavaliers were unable to overcome a second-half scoring drought against the Seminoles down the stretch — falling to Florida State 80-75 in John Paul Jones Arena Friday night.
With 18 seconds left in the game, Virginia came out of a timeout down by 3 points to Florida State and prepared to inbound the ball at half court.
“There [are] only two things you can do there,” Virginia coach Debbie Ryan said. “Try to get the 3 [points] the old fashioned way ... and then we had a weak side player ready to shoot the three.”
Senior forward Lyndra Littles was that player on the far side of the court ready to shoot from behind the arc, already three for four from 3-point territory on the night. The play, however, went the other direction, as the ball was inbounded and passed inside to senior center Aisha Mohammed. After Mohammed missed her shot, junior guard Monica Wright wrestled down the offensive rebound and followed it back in with a 2-point jumper inside the paint.
Though there was a lot of contact on the shot, no foul was called, and the Cavaliers would have to settle for a two that cut the lead to 1 with 12 seconds left.
“To go for a three at 17 seconds — you don’t need to,” Ryan said. “There is plenty of time, you can foul people all day between 17 seconds and 8 seconds, and you are still in a good position. So we could have played foul, two, foul, two, foul, two.”
Unfortunately for Virginia, when Florida State went six for six in its last six attempts from the stripe, it could not make up any ground on the lead the Seminoles had built up during the course of the second half.
“I’m proud of the way our team came out in the second half,” Florida State coach Sue Semrau said. “I felt like Virginia really had their way in the first half — they really played the way they wanted to play. It wasn’t until the second half that we started to play our style of basketball.”
Though the first half might have been “Virginia-style basketball” from the Seminole point of view, the scoreboard indicated an even game at 38-38, although it took a last-second, banked 3-point shot from Florida State to level the game before the first period ended.
And despite Semrau’s comments regarding the style of play in the second half, the Seminoles’ scoring attack was aided by the unlikely 3-point shooting they managed against Virginia.
“We did take advantage of [the 3-point shooting], but it’s not our game plan,” Semrau said.
It seemed Virginia, too, was not expecting this long-range shooting from Florida State, allowing it to shoot 10 for 21 from behind the arc.
“I think it was definitely lack of execution on our part,” Wright said. “We were definitely prepared for them. We knew exactly who their shooters were. They hit their shots when they needed them.”
With the win, Florida State moves to an impressive 5-0 start in the ACC, while Virginia falls to 2-2 in the ACC and 2-3 against ranked opponents.
“We shouldn’t have losses like this at home,” Wright said, “but it happens, and we are just going to have to get better.”
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