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Wake Forest vs. Florida State Game Preview

By Riley Johnston

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Florida State (15-6, 5-2) (9-2 Home)

     vs.

Wake Forest (8-13, 1-5) (0-5 Road)

TV: ACC Network (Click here for link to game)

 

Wake Forest finally got their first win of the ACC season on Saturday vs. UVA. The Deacs will try to carry some of that momentum into tonight's game as they head south to Tallahassee to take on the Florida State Seminoles.

Click through for statistics, projections/predictions, and analysis for the game tonight.

Category Offense Defense D-I Avg
Adj. Efficiency: 99.7 195 84.8 3 101.2
Adj. Tempo: 69.7 66 67.3
Four Factors
Effective FG%: 48.4 203 40.9 3 49.0
Turnover %: 23.7 307 22.7 68 20.5
Off. Reb. %: 38.3 15 30.4 89 32.5
FTA/FGA: 38.6 163 37.6 165 38.0
Miscellaneous Components
3P%: 32.9 233 29.3 11 34.4
2P%: 47.9 170 38.9 1 47.8
FT%: 66.4 245 71.6 287 68.8
Block%: 7.9 89 18.2 2 9.2
Steal%: 11.4 316 12.5 22 9.5

Florida State is very good at defense. They are actually VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY good at defense. Looking at this quick analysis by KenPom, it is obvious how good they are at defense (all the green on the right), and how average they are at offense. This will cause some very big problems for us tonight if we do not bring our "A game" offensively. FSU thrives on wreaking havoc on the defensive end to get easy baskets going the other way. Unfortunately they have been turning the ball over an astonishingly high amount. For Wake to have any chance in this game they are going to have to hit their shots (most likely 3's with Singleton inside) early and often.

The weirdest thing about FSU is how they spread the ball around on offense. If you go to KenPom and look at the individual stats, players are normally grouped into 5 different categories: Go to guy, key contributors, role players, limited roles, and nearly invisible. FSU uses exactly two of these categories: key contributors, and role players. Now make no mistake that Chris Singleton is THE guy in Tallahassee, but the Noles spread the ball around and get more players involved  better than probably every other team in the country.

It is a bit shocking that they are not better on the offensive end since there are so many players involved. Kitchen and Singleton should take more shots to begin with, but other than that, they all have mediocre offensive ratings, which really fuels the average ratings offensively.

GAME STATISTICS
Player GP MIN PPG RPG APG SPG BPG TPG FG% FT% 3P%
Chris Singleton 21 31.0 14.2 7.4 1.4 2.1 1.8 2.4 .429 .689 .359
Derwin Kitchen 21 29.9 10.2 5.9 3.6 1.8 0.1 2.0 .520 .750 .380
Michael Snaer 21 27.7 8.0 2.5 2.0 0.8 0.2 2.5 .350 .800 .351
Bernard James 21 19.8 8.0 5.8 0.1 0.8 2.2 1.3 .663 .479 .000
Deividas Dulkys 20 24.4 7.1 3.2 1.1 1.2 0.4 1.6 .361 .364 .337
Xavier Gibson 13 19.1 6.9 4.8 0.5 0.2 1.3 1.6 .461 .731 .111
Okaro White 21 13.6 5.8 2.7 0.6 0.5 0.2 1.0 .442 .809 .292
Terrance Shannon 18 13.1 4.9 2.8 0.3 0.3 0.3 1.0 .403 .551 .000
Ian Miller 10 14.8 4.8 1.1 0.7 0.4 0.0 1.6 .320 .875 .346
Luke Loucks 21 15.3 3.2 1.8 2.3 0.7 0.0 2.0 .352 .750 .282
Jon Kreft 12 9.3 3.1 2.5 0.4 0.1 0.3 1.3 .520 .524 .000
Joey Moreau 3 1.3 0.7 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .000 1.000 .000
Rafeal Portuondo 3 1.7 0.7 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .250 .000 .000
Pierre Jordan 12 5.7 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.3 0.0 0.6 .095 1.000 .100
A.J. Yawn 4 1.5 0.5 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .000 .500 .000
Andrew Rutledge 1 3.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .000 .000 .000
Totals 21 -- 69 40 13 9 6 17 .427 .664 .329

Chris Singleton is a man-child, and will be playing in the NBA some time soon. He leads the team in points, rebounds, and steals. Derwin Kitchen does a great job of spreading the ball around. While the 3.6 assists may not be that impressive at first glance, he is responsible for 1/4 of all assists when he is on the court at 24.9 (KenPom). 

FSU does not shoot well from anywhere, but particularly struggles behind the 3-point line. I believe that they will go down low all night until we prove we can stop it. Singleton and James are going to be very, very difficult to guard with who we have. They should be able to outmuscle us and outrebound us all night.

FSU Starting 5 (projected)

 

There are some obvious size problems there for us, and as I stated before, they will most likely manhandle us on the boards.

Predictions:

  • KenPom- FSU-79 Wake-59 
  • Vegas likes FSU by 20
  • My Prediction: FSU-66 Wake-49
I will admit to not putting a lot of thought into this, but FSU has a ton of size and is dominant on the defensive end. Those are two things that do not bode well for us. If we can move the ball like we did against UVA and not turn the ball over then we have a chance to keep it between 10-15. That should be the goal because a win tonight is highly unlikely. FSU does tend to "play down" to their opponents so you never know, but do not get disheartened if we come out "flat" and take a beating. This doesn't mean that we are regressing, FSU is just a much better team than we are. Stay positive and optimistic, and just enjoy the game.