To the average viewer, the Florida State men’s basketball team probably performed fine in the first half of Friday’s 101-64 win over Alabama State.
The Seminoles had a 46-30 lead, shooting 43.6% while limiting
the Hornets to 38.5%. With five steals, Florida State forced eight turnovers into 15 points off turnovers, also turning 10 offensive rebounds into 17 second-chance points.
But it’s safe to say FSU head coach Luke Loucks isn’t the average viewer. And he made it clear in his halftime interview on the broadcast that he wasn’t satisfied by what his team did in the opening 20 minutes.
“I think Alabama State outplayed us that half. We’re up 16, but we made a lot of mistakes. They switched their defenses up quite a bit and to be frank, I thought they played harder than us,” Loucks said. “Our guys are about to hear from me. If we play like that against Florida, we’re going to be down 50. It’s all about building the right habits, and right now, I think we played a bad half of basketball.”
There were certainly things to not like about Florida State’s first half. It shot just five free throws — a byproduct of nearly two-thirds of the team’s field-goal attempts being 3-pointers — while Alabama State shot 13 free throws, hitting just six of them in a lucky break for the Seminoles.
His frustration certainly speaks to how he perceives his team’s performance. To borrow a Mike Tomlinism, “The standard is the standard.”
While Loucks hasn’t yet coached in a game against a high-major opponent — that comes Tuesday at Florida — he probably has an understanding that the performance his team put on the court in the first half was not going to be good enough against a similarly (or more) talented opponent.
“I felt like outside of the last few minutes of the half, they outcompeted us. I don’t care that we were up 16. I thought it was a poor half of basketball and I thought we were hesitating offensively,” Loucks said. “Their zone got us on our heels a little bit. We were turning down good looks which resulted in poor looks, and that’s not the brand of basketball we want to play.”
In his postgame press conference, Loucks did praise his team for its second-half performance. After what he called a “feisty” locker-room talk with his team at the half, the Seminoles met Loucks’ lofty standard over the final 20 minutes.
“To their credit, our players responded. I thought that was a great second half of basketball where we we did a good job on defense, creating great looks on offense,” Loucks said. “Our defense can fuel our offense. Once we get out and run, it’s going to be really hard to stop us.”
Loucks understands that down halves are going to happen. No team, no matter how talented or how well it is coached, is immune from the occasional letdown. Florida State’s up-tempo offense and frenetic defensive intensity are going to really challenge his team’s consistency.
He’s just hopeful the first half of Friday’s game can be a lesson to his team. The second half was a strong start in that regard.
“I just want to treat all these games, especially against lower-level opponents, in preparation for the big games,” Loucks said. “That’s our whole non-conference schedule is preparing for our conference schedule, both against the great opponents and the lower opponents. I felt like in the first half, we didn’t do that.”
