After a rocky first half in the round one game against St. Bonaventure, many fans are wondering if the Noles underestimated the Bonnies. Bill from Tampa believes that its the fans who didn't expect the team from western New York to put up such a fight.
I really think a lot of FSU fans are not understanding just how good St Bonaventure is. I think that perception comes from the seeding. They see a 14 and think to themselves that it is a lesser quality team. That is simply not the case in the large majority of the teams that are in the NCAA. They are in there for a reason ... they are good. And the Bonnies were no exception to that.
While we didn't exactly play the best defense we could in the first half you have to credit the Bonnies for a lot of that. What they did with Nicholson was a nice move. He had made just 26 threes all season and goes out and makes 4 of 5 against us. Why? Because they ran screens for him and then popped him outside. They identified a weakness in our big men -- namely they don't defend well out at the perimeter. It was the very same strategy (executed differently) that Wisconsin used against us in the second half of the NCAA three years ago.
To our credit we pulled it together through defense in stopping what was an unexpected transition game the Bonnies unveiled. They ran out of gas somewhat (notice the number of point blank shots they missed in the second half) and we made it tougher for them to makes shots.
This was NOT a case of FSU playing down to an opponent. Not at all.
But what about all that sloppy play and those first half turnovers?
Everyone thinks we turned the ball over left and right. We had a total of 6 by the half. Two of them we got in the first couple of minutes. What every FSU fan seems to forget is the Bonnies were turning it over early as well and had 7 by the half.
We didn't play as badly as the perception seems to be by many. Was it our best game? No, not at all. It was a far cry from the really bad games we had this season i.e. at Clemson, Princeton, Harvard, etc.
Comments? Questions? Kudos?