Duke Basketball: Despite title game berth, Florida State is underrated

The Florida State Seminoles will be taking on the Duke Basketball team in the ACC Championship Saturday night, but despite much success this season, the Seminoles are very underrated.

The Florida State Seminoles are a very underrated team in the ACC, and that shouldn’t be the case.

However, when you arguably have the three best team in the country in the conference (Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia) it becomes very easy to overlook other very good teams in the conference.

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The Seminoles were horrific to start off ACC play, just winning one of its first five games, with losses to Pittsburgh and Boston College. Many people assumed that the 12-1 non-conference record was just a fluke and the Seminoles would disappoint in conference.

After the loss to Boston College, Florida State would lose just one game for the remainder of the season (at. North Carolina) and finish with an overall record of 25-6 and 13-5 in the ACC with the No. 4 seed in the ACC Tournament.

The Seminoles needed a last second come back on Thursday in the quarterfinals to defeat Virginia Tech in overtime and then Florida State really controlled the tempo and pace of the game Friday night against Virginia, defeating the Cavs 69-59.

Florida State had a vey, very balanced attack on Friday against Virginia. Four different players had at least 10 points, with two others posting nine points each.

David Nichols led the way with a 14 points, five rebounds, three assists, and two steals.

Phil Cofer finished with 11 points, while Mfiondu Kabengele had 10 points, six rebounds, and two blocks.

Trent Forrest chipped in 10 points in the upset win, while Christ Koumadje had nine points and nine rebounds, while M.J. Walker also had nine points.

Duke and Florida State only met once in the regular season down in Tallahassee and the Blue Devils won on a Cam Reddish 3-point as time expired.

In that game Zion Williamson did not play in the second half due to an eye injury, but the Seminoles were led by the 24 points, 10 rebounds, two steals, and three blocks from Kabengele, in addition to 21 points and seven rebounds from Cofer.

P.J. Savoy was the only other Seminole in double figures with 10 points.

Head Coach Leonard Hamilton has a very long and athletic team and that works in the Seminoles favor most of the time on the court, and how Duke tries to handle Florida State will be interesting after an intense and emotional game against North Carolina.

Stay tuned to Ball Durham on Twitter, @Ball_Durham, and here at our website, balldurham.com, for complete coverage of the Duke Blue Devils vs. the Florida State Seminoles.

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