Hurricanes Get Blown Out by Florida State’s Offense 80-65

Coral Gables, FL – The crowd’s presence sure was felt from both sides at the Watsco Center. Fans made their respective chants well heard throughout the arena at tipoff. Coming off losing streaks of their last three, 10 of their last 11, and 20 of their last 24 matches, it was presumptive that the Miami Hurricanes would’ve been fired up to get their first W in conference play against their rivals in the panhandle, the Florida State Seminoles. Although the Seminoles didn’t entirely quiet down Hurricane fans when things looked sour, they surely took control of this game early.

The crowd sure is showing their presence here at the Watsco Center pic.twitter.com/QR6j71WJPn

— Ricardo Urrusuno (@RickScores) January 9, 2025

Daunting half highlighted by bad performances all around

Miami had an early 5-0 lead, but that was their lone ray of sunlight during the game. The missed 3-pointers started to pile up early on in the 1st half for the Hurricanes, giving FSU the ability to take the lead for good. The tale of UM’s season has been their inability to close out games in the last few minutes of the 2nd half. This in-state rivalry game, however, was already out of hand before halftime when it was a 39-25 FSU lead. An atrocious stretch of missed jump shots, turnovers, and personal fouls for UM gave Florida State a 13-0 run. We all know Miami has a turnover problem, but having six turnovers in five minutes is clearly unacceptable and the sign of a team that doesn’t have chemistry on the court.

Halftime in Watsco pic.twitter.com/zSNgZSH0iy

— Canes Men’s Basketball (@CanesHoops) January 9, 2025

Despite Canes run, Noles capitalize once again

UM had their own 9-0 run going for them to cut the lead down to 6 at 56-50 after a second-chance layup by Paul Djobet. The crowd was energized once again as the team had woken up for the time first since the start of the game really. Miami’s joyride though wouldn’t last for long. The Noles answered back with a 15-1 run. The scoreboard by then showed the obvious, a 71-51 blowout advantage. With 6:05 to go, Canes fans were already making their way out of the building. Who could blame them when the home squad was getting shellacked? All they missed was a 10-0 UM run to end the game, but by then those points were coming off garbage time and everything was well in the can.

Paul Djobet with the basket pic.twitter.com/6TkxRFH8hE

— Ricardo Urrusuno (@RickScores) January 9, 2025

Talking points of the game

The Seminoles offensive dominance was spotlighted by three players scoring in the double digits. Malique Edwins had himself a double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds, while Taylor Bol Bowen had 16 points and 6 rebounds, and Jamir Watkins had 10 points.

The Canes only had three additional turnovers in the game (13-10), but the Noles sure did answer back on the points off turnovers with a lobsided 20-3 advantage. Regarding the fast break woes, Coach Bill Courtney said, “We had our chances, we kept playing hard, but they just took advantage of our mistakes.”

Putting this outcome to bed

Matthew Cleveland once again led UM with 16 points and has stepped up as the team’s leader. When asked about how the team will prepare differently against Wake Forest this Saturday Cleveland said, “We’ll watch film on this, we’ll do better. I’ll say the biggest thing is executing. We have to get better defensively on our ball screen, coverages, talking more. So, I would say that’s the biggest thing. Wake’s a good team, they can score so defensive has got to be our big priority.”

UM will face off against 11-4 (3-1) WF this Saturday at 5:15 pm at the Watsco Center.