Virginia Tech fell apart in the second half of its 92-69 loss to Florida State on Saturday, an ill-timed setback after Wednesday’s win at No. 20 Clemson.
“They outplayed us, they outcoached us,” Tech head coach Mike Young said. “Maybe the understatement of the year.”
The Hokies (17-9, 6-7 ACC) led 42-39 at the break before things unraveled. The Seminoles (12-13, 5-7) outscored them 53-27 in the second half and blew them out of the water behind 78 percent shooting (18-for-23).
It was the best clip by an opposing team in a single half dating back to 2008-09, surpassing a 73.1 percent mark in the first half from FSU in a 2015 meeting.
Tech wasn’t much better on the other end either, making just nine of its 25 attempts (36%) after intermission. The Noles imposed their will on both ends and ran the Hokies out of their own gym.
“I didn’t think we played great in the first half, but I liked a lot of things,” Young said, “and I thought we could’ve been up, if not should’ve been up, by more. Mishandled a couple of things. Thought we had it all squared away. Bad start to the second half. The ball was on the floor too much compared to where it was not in the first half, and they found some matchups that, needless to say, they liked, and they exploited those.”
It started when FSU scored the first three points of the second half to knot things at 42. Tech pushed back behind a Neoklis Avdalas 3-pointer, which provided a five-point cushion at 49-44, but then the Seminoles took off.
They went on a 13-0 run, spearheaded by Martin Somerville, while the Hokies went 3:47 without a bucket — a stretch that featured four turnovers and four missed shots. All of a sudden, FSU led by eight, 57-49. While Tech hadn’t played well, it felt due for a run.
After a Young timeout, it cut the deficit to six behind a Jailen Bedford transition layup. But the momentum didn’t stick around for long. Instead, the game spiraled out of control for the Hokies.
Somerville quickly scored seven points on his own, and Chauncey Wiggins tacked on a three to make it a 10-0 Florida State run over 2:06. After Ben Hammond stopped the drought for Virginia Tech, the Noles came back swinging again with an 11-0 run over 2:21, with four points apiece from Robert McCray and Wiggins.
In all, it was a 21-3 stretch from FSU over 5:16. At that point, it led 84-60 with 4:09 remaining and had outscored VT 45-18 in the second half.
“This was probably our best performance of the season on both sides of the ball,” Florida State head coach Luke Loucks said.
It marked the fourth time since 2010 that a Hokies’ opponent had three runs of at least 10-plus points in a game — and the first occurrence in one half.
It was shades of Tech’s 34-point loss to Florida Atlantic at Disney two seasons ago, where it was a very even and competitive first half before the other team turned on the jets. That day, the Owls opened the second half with 12 straight points, turning it into a 20-point cushion, and tacked on a 15-0 run later to push the lead above 30.
The difference, though, was that the Hokies were only seven games into their season at that point. In their defeat to the Seminoles, which was their 26th contest of the year, they didn’t look anywhere close to the team that outplayed a ranked Tigers squad on Wednesday.
Tech couldn’t afford a setback of this variety, but it came anyway, essentially re-burying itself in the hole it had just dug out of in Littlejohn Coliseum.
“I’m not sure I’ve got an explanation,” Young said. “We had a great win on Wednesday. We played a very good basketball game against a very good team. Our team certainly understood the magnitude of this one, and I watched Florida State play really well against Virginia at home on Tuesday. …
“We knew that they were talented. We didn’t see anything tonight that we hadn’t seen in games prior. But it wasn’t a mental lapse on our part at all. This group has been great in that regard. It started rolling downhill and we couldn’t put a stop to it.”
It was also a flashback to the 2010-11 season, where the Hokies were 19-8 (9-5) after upsetting No. 1 Duke, but then dropped their final two regular-season games to Boston College (by 15) and Clemson (by nine). Just when it seemed like the stars were aligning, they shot themselves in the foot.
Somerville, who had only scored in double figures eight times this season, tied his season-high of 23 points on 9-for-11 shooting. He was a flamethrower in the second half and was a perfect 7-for-7, which included three of his four triples. He also added six assists and four rebounds.
Wiggins (19 points), McCray (17) and Lajae Jones (17 points, seven rebounds) provided balance while Thomas Bassong (eight points) and AJ Swinton (six) added three 3-pointers off the bench for the Seminoles.
On the Hokies’ side, Tobi Lawal and Hammond each posted 16 points and were a combined 12-for-15, including 5-for-5 from deep, with 12 rebounds. Avdalas also converted three of his five treys en route to 10 points.
Bedford chipped in 13 points and four assists while Amani Hansberry was shut down, scoring just 10 points — six of which came from the stripe — on 2-for-10 shooting. He also finished with four of the team’s 10 turnovers. That was a battle Florida State won by five.
FSU made 34 of its 55 field goal attempts for 61.8 percent, which included a 12-for-23 mark (52.2%) from long range. It was also 12-for-17 from the foul line.
It attacked and was the aggressor in the second half, and the Hokies couldn’t turn the tide. They drew four fouls in the first six minutes and eight free throws over that stretch, which got Tech out of rhythm, and went right at Jaden Schutt with its screening actions — what the coaching staff believed was its biggest advantage.
“Jaden Schutt’s a great player, he’s a really good shooter,” Loucks said, “but he was one guy that, especially when Martin Somerville or any of our perimeter players get going and they get a rhythm, that was one guy that we were trying to pull into the screens and try to isolate him a little bit. … We call it picking on a scab. You just keep picking on the scab until it comes out, and Martin just picked on the scab. He kept calling him up and isolating him, and to Martin’s credit, he finished the play time and time again.”
Defensively, the Noles used some full-court press and switched to a shifty zone that forced the Hokies to take longer to initiate their actions. They also crowded the lane when Tech drove to the paint and swiped the ball away, especially from Hansberry.
“If you can limit his touches, it’s going to be good for you,” Loucks said of Hansberry. “And then once he touched the ball, we can’t allow him straight-line drives to the rim. … Any time a player of that caliber is approaching your hoop, you want to be in early and sit there until the ball is out of his hands, which puts you in some tough spots on the perimeter, because you’re going to be basically rotating to a shooter and trying to contest late, but it’s something you’ve got to live with, because otherwise he’s going to have his way around the rim.”
Everything snowballed for the Hokies. Their offensive struggles bled over to the defensive side and vice versa, and they went from being up five to being down 13 in a matter of minutes.
The difficult part for Tech is that unless it can string together a magical run in the final five games of the season, this was the obituary for its NCAA Tournament hopes.
The path ahead includes a trip to Miami, where the Hokies are 3-3 under Young; a home game vs. Wake Forest, which has beaten Tech five of the last six times; a visit to No. 11 North Carolina and an arena in the Dean Smith Center, where it’s only won once in 10 tries (2007); a home game vs. Boston College, a program Young is just 1-6 against; and an expedition to No. 15 Virginia and John Paul Jones Arena, a place it is 5-13 all-time.
Had the Hokies held serve and won their three home games against the Seminoles, Demon Deacons and Eagles, they would’ve had a strong bubble résumé with a legitimate chance to dance. Alas, Saturday’s loss means they will now have to overachieve even more than before to make their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2022.
“Bad day for the Hokies,” Young said. “The only response we’ve got is to bounce back on Tuesday in South Florida and play better.”
Box Score: Florida State 92, Virginia Tech 69