A fast-paced Florida State offense could pose a problem for the Iowa men’s basketball team.
By Ian Murphy
The Florida State men’s basketball team could pose a threat to the Hawkeyes in the form of a fast-paced offense.
Similar to Dayton, which toppled the Hawkeyes in the opening round of the AdvoCare Invitational, the Seminoles like to run the floor and score points in bunches.
They also return five starters from a year ago and have six players averaging 20 points per game or more, and another three averaging in the teens. The Seminoles, who are 4-1 on the season, average 91.4 points per game, good for ninth nationally, compared to 74.8 per game for their opponents, although their schedule has been anything but tough until now.
The Hawkeyes will have to slow the attack.
“Yeah, they’re fast. They’ve got speed,” head coach Fran McCaffery said. “They attack, kind of that attack mentality. It will be more up and down, similar to the Dayton game.”
Dayton topped Iowa, 82-77, but Florida State is a different animal.
Rather than key in on one man or release an extra defender on defense, McCaffery said the team would focus on slowing the Seminole attack would be on the offensive end of the floor.
“The key oftentimes in situations like that is shot selection,” said the head coach, who posted his 100th win at Iowa against Wichita State. “If you turn it over, that’s a problem against Florida State. If you take a bad shot, it’s a problem. It’s any team that plays that way with those kinds of athletes.”
Those kind of athletes include Xavier Rathan-Mayes, Dwayne Bacon, and Malik Beasley, who lead the team with 28.4, 27.6, and 27.2 points per game, respectively.
And while the Seminoles’ scoring prowess has been well-documented, their ability to score points in volume cannot be overstated.
Transition scoring by the Flyers plagued the Hawkeyes, and senior Jarrod Uthoff said it was the key takeaway from the tournament.
“I think that was a focal point of the Dayton game,” Uthoff said. “We’ll try to work on that and try to remedy it.”
The remedy won’t come easy, but recent history favors the Hawkeyes. Iowa beat North Carolina in Chapel Hill last season during last season’s Big Ten/ACC Challenge and beat Notre Dame in Carver-Hawkeye in 2013.
The Hawkeyes and Seminoles have split 1-1 on their series.
And while the Hawkeyes had a rough outing at the invitational, they are confident they can stop the Seminoles.
“That happens in the game of basketball,” senior Adam Woodbury said. “We’re just going to try to rectify it on Wednesday.”
