No. 6 Seminoles fall in bizarre last-second heartbreaker at Clemson
CLEMSON, S.C. -- Even though he said it was more charge calls than he'd ever seen in a game before, Leonard Hamilton didn't want to blame the officials after No. 6 Florida State's 70-69 loss at Clemson.
He gave plenty of other reasons for the defeat. Despite the offensive foul disparity and a bizarre sequence in the final minute that took a go-ahead dunk away from Trent Forrest.
Hamilton said the Seminoles (24-5, 14-4 in the ACC) turned it over too many times and allowed way too much dribble-drive penetration. Clemson made 18 layups in the win, including the game-winner from Al-Amir Dawes with one second remaining.
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Box Score: Clemson 70, No. 6 FSU 69
"When you're on the road against a team that's hungry for a victory," Hamilton said. "And when you turn the ball over 16 times, charge 7 or 8 times, go 11 of 18 from the free-throw line - that's a recipe for failure."
Even as poorly as the Seminoles played in the second half, though, they were still just one point down with 22 seconds left. That's when Clyde Trapp missed a second straight free throw for Clemson. Florida State couldn't secure the rebound and as the ball was going out of bounds a Clemson player threw the ball back toward midcout. It was stolen by Trent Forrest for what was going to be a go-ahead dunk. But an inadvertent whistle stopped the game.
After about a five-minute delay the officials awarded the ball to Florida State. Forrest went on to make a go-ahead basket anyway, but with 8 seconds remaining. Not 15 or 16. The result was that Clemson's Dawes took the inbounds pass and sprinted toward the basket, eventually working himself free for the go-ahead basket with just one second remaining.
"If they don't call whatever they called," Forrest said. "If we had not been sitting there for that long, it's a dunk there. And we're probably talking about a different game."
Perhaps. Even if the possession plays out the exact same way and Dawes scores - which is a big "if"- the Seminoles would have, at the very least, had more time to attempt a game-winning shot.
"We would have had time to set up our defense," said Forrest, who scored the last six points for the Seminoles and finished with 11. "Our coaching staff does a good job of knowing a lot of teams' plays, so I feel like we would have had a good plan and a good defensive possession.
"But when you get into a situation where someone is going that fast, you don't want to foul and put them on the line obviously. So you just have to play it straight up."
Which, in the end, resulted in just the fifth loss of the season for the Seminoles.
Florida State had a chance to stay one game in front in the ACC standings over Duke and two over Louisville, but now are 14-4 in the conference race.
And while a lot of attention will be focused on the final minute on Saturday, it could be argued the Seminoles lost to Clemson in the first 10 minutes of the second half. After Forrest hit a 3 to give FSU a 10-point lead on the first possession after halftime, the Seminoles went more than eight minutes without making another field goal.
They also missed four free throws during that stretch. And committed six turnovers.
Clemson was able to do enough damage offensively - mainly by getting to the rim - to take the lead multiple times in the second half.
The Tigers scored 23 points off FSU turnovers and for the game were 18 of 22 on dunk and layup attempts.
"It was a great gameplan, exploiting our inability to contain the dribble," Hamilton said.
"We're going to go back and watch the film and see where we messed up (on defense)," said Devin Vassell, who had a team-high 14 points. "We'll see what we can learn on. It's just a learning game. We've got two more games. We're ready for Notre Dame. And it's going to be a fight up there, too."
Vassell added: "We've got to be able to close out games. Trent had a big basket. We've just got to be able to close it out."
Forrest said he told the team afterwards that there was still plenty left to play for. Not just in the ACC race but for all of March as well.
One loss, on a last-second shot on the road, doesn't change the way the senior guard feels about his team.
"We've just been on the other end of it so many times," Forrest said with a smile. "Sometimes it just happens like that. My message to the team was just put this past us. We've got so much left to play for. ... We still know our end goal and we can still do the things we want to accomplish.
"It's still right there for us to take."
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