Almost a year ago to the day, head coach Leonard Hamilton’s job was not secure.
In case anyone forgot about what happened on March 9, 2016, here’s a reminder: Florida State men’s basketball lost its second round ACC Tournament game to Virginia Tech. The 19-13 Seminoles saw their last hopes at an NCAA Tournament bid squashed in a 96-85 loss.
A team with 5-star Dwayne Bacon, eventual first-round NBA Draft pick Malik Beasley, and former ACC All-Freshman guard Xavier Rathan-Mayes only amounted to an NIT appearance. A decent 20-14 overall record could not cover up the sub-par 8-10 ACC record which included losses to Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Pittsburgh.
None of which would have mattered much if the Seminoles had finished strong. Instead, the season ended in disappointment, and all eyes turned to Hamilton to explain it. Why had a team with so much talent fell short of expectations?
In retrospect, the lack of depth played a larger part than most realized. It doesn’t fully explain some of the losses, but the point remained that Hamilton needed a strong 2016-17 season to retain his job. This was most evident when athletic director Stan Wilcox gave him a 2-year extension.
Many saw this is a “prove it” contract, where Hamilton would need to meet expectations in order to fulfill it. He is in the midst of doing so now.
Thankfully for the Seminoles, there is no curse put upon them by the Hokies. FSU defeated Virginia Tech 74-68 on Thursday night in a hard-fought affair that went down to the last few minutes. It wasn’t pretty, but the Seminoles got the job done. They now advance and will face a Notre Dame team who somehow shot its way through a stingy Virginia defense.
Yes, there were some inexcusable losses along the way, but every team has those. The road struggles have been beaten to death already, and there’s no point in reviewing them here.
The bottom line is this: at the end of the regular season, FSU finished with a 24-7 overall record, 12-6 ACC record, a No. 2 seed in the ACC Tournament, and four victories over Ken Pomeroy’s top 25 teams. With a school-record 24 wins during the regular season, the Seminoles are one of the best teams in the nation.
Yet, that doesn’t satisfy them.
Everyone in the basketball program remembers the expectations coming into this season. They remember the uncertainty a year ago, and probably no one better than Hamilton himself.
“I just want to keep it in perspective,” the head coach said following Sunday’s 66-57 win over Miami in the regular season finale. “We’re not done yet, we’ve still got a ways to go. We want to make sure we milk this season for all we can get out of it…let’s not be satisfied for where we are now.”
The truth is that Hamilton still isn’t out of the clear yet. This was brought up a couple of months ago, proposing this hypothetical: if Florida State gets bounced in the first round of the upcoming NCAA Tournament, where does the program stand?
It will likely lose three of its best players from this year’s team in Bacon, Jonathan Isaac, and Rathan-Mayes. Two would likely be in the NBA at that point. So there will have been three NBA players to come through FSU with almost nothing to show for it.
Hamilton’s statement from the Miami game reflects this sentiment. He knows that this team cannot be satisfied yet.
Once again, hypotheticals are hypotheticals. But the players are well aware of the “reputation” Florida State basketball has. They know that there is something left to prove.
“We’ve already started to prove it,” Isaac said after the Miami victory. “We were picked to finish eighth in the ACC, so we’ve already proved people wrong.”
Bacon’s sentiments were similar.
“…nobody expected us to win it,” he said “Nobody expected us to be a No. 2 seed in the ACC either.”
Hamilton also knows that a coach needs to look towards the future as well. Getting caught in the moment typically leads to bad results — a reality which was readily apparent last year when FSU came into ACC play 10-2 with hype behind it. It’s time for Hamilton to put it all together and make the tournament run that is now expected after one of the best regular seasons in school-history.
The program can’t wait any longer. It’s time for the Seminoles to assert themselves and validate everything they did. Rathan-Mayes, one of the team’s few veterans, perhaps summed it up the best.
“I think we’ve got a lot to prove,” he said. “We feel like we could have won this conference in the regular season, we gave up a couple games that kind of hurt us down the stretch, but we’ve always got a chip on our shoulder. We feel like we don’t have the respect of the national media the way we should. We feel like we’re a top 10, top 5 program in the country, and we just got to go out there and prove that every single night. What better stage to do that than the Barclays Center?”
Florida State will look to reach the ACC Tournament championship for the third time in school-history with a win over Notre Dame on Friday night.
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