No. 8 FSU basketball turns up heat on defense, turns back North Carolina
On a night when the Florida State offense was out of sorts for long stretches, the No. 8-ranked Seminoles turned to a familiar secret weapon -- Leonard Hamilton's "Junkyard Dog" defense -- and it yielded very familiar results.
At one point forcing North Carolina to miss 17 consecutive shots, the Seminoles rallied from an early second-half deficit and pulled away Monday night for a 65-59 victory.
With the win, the Seminoles improved to 19-3 overall and 9-2 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Tar Heels fell to 10-12 and 3-8. They now have lost seven of their last nine games.
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Box Score: No. 8 FSU 65, North Carolina 59
It wasn't pretty, but Florida State won its 18th consecutive home game and its 12th straight ACC home game, dating back to January 2019. The Seminoles also have now won 12 of their last 13 games this season.
But Hamilton could only laugh when a reporter asked him if his team is "peaking" at the right time.
"We're so far away from peaking, I can't even see the top," he said with a smile. "We're a long ways away. ... We have a lot of room for growth."
After taking a 29-28 lead into the half, Florida State fell behind early in the second period, thanks to a mini-run by North Carolina point guard Cole Anthony.
Anthony, playing his second game back after recovering from a knee injury, led the Tar Heels with 16 points. But he and his teammates were completely shut down for a large portion of the second half, which allowed the Seminoles to to take a 10-point lead with less than seven minutes remaining.
Anthony, a freshman who was the No. 1 point guard in the country coming out of high school, connected on just 5 of 22 shots from the field.
"You don't really contain a guy like that," Hamilton said. "He's only been back a couple of games. He has an adjustment period he has to go through. I'm sure our guys gave him all the defensive effort that we could."
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UNC made things interesting down the stretch but never got closer than four points.
Florida State was led offensively by Patrick Williams with 14 points, Trent Forrest with 14 and RaiQuan Gray with 12.
The Seminoles shot 41.8 percent from the field and 26.7 from 3-point range. They also turned the ball over 16 times.
"We just didn't handle their pressure. You've got to give North Carolina credit," Hamilton said. "They had a little bit to do with our indecision and our inability to handle the moment."
North Carolina hit just 30.9 percent of its shots from the field and 31.6 percent from long range.
FSU returns to action Saturday against visiting Miami.
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