Basketball Celebration

BASKETBALL CELEBRATION BASKETBALL CELEBRATION

PHOTOS BY MIKE OLIVELLA By JERRY KUTZ, RETIRED SR. VICE PRESIDENT SEMINOLE BOOSTERS & CURRENT OWNER, PUBLISHER OF THEOSCEOLA.COM

Thank goodness, Florida State had the foresight. At the time, it seemed a bit over the top. Leonard Hamilton climbing the ladder to cut down the net.

It looked odd not because a 71-year-old man should never be on a ladder but because Hamilton is the last guy you would ever expect to engage in a net-cutting ceremony with games still to play.

FSU’s win over Boston College clinched the program’s first-ever, regular season Atlantic Coast Conference Championship and prompted the celebration. The banner and ladder were ready. “We’ve coined our own phrase: we’re new bloods,” said Hamilton, who is in his 18th season as Florida State’s coach. “We’re not going to catch up with the 80 years that were before us. We’re fighting for our spot and our position, the hierarchy of the most respected programs in the history of college basketball.

“It’s important for us because we get a notch on our belt. And we have to enjoy this. But we think we’re just getting started.”

And it felt so good. The party that is March Madness was just getting started. Little did we know at the time, the netcutting win would in fact be the Seminoles’ last game of the season.

Nor could we ever imagine it would clinch an ACC Tournament Championship five days later. It had to be surreal. The Seminoles were in the locker room, in Greensboro, N.C., preparing to play Clemson in front of 20,000 empty seats. Unbeknownst to them, ACC officials were in meetings deciding to cancel the remainder of the prestigious tournament.

When the Seminoles made their way to the court it was not to play a game in the empty arena but, stranger yet, to accept the ACC Tournament Championship trophy.

ACC Commissioner John Swofford, obviously beleaguered after days of meetings, looked for a Florida State player, or coach, anybody, to present the coveted trophy.

The players looked bewildered. For a moment, I wondered if anyone would take the trophy, which is only the second ACC Tournament the Seminoles have “won” since they joined in 1992.

It was awkward. I certainly didn’t see anyone drink champagne from the trophy, or lock lips with it, and no tears of joy.

The tears would come later when the players were told the NCAA tournament had been cancelled.

“The most important thing is the safety of our studentathletes, and the families,” Hamilton said. “This is obviously a very challenging position for all of us to be in. But in light of the uncertainty and the moving parts of this scenario, the best thing is for us to take a step back.”

There would be no home-court advantage in Tampa, a likely destination for the Seminoles in first-and secondround NCAA Tournament. There wouldn’t even be a game.

Devin Vassell’s four-word tweet said it all: “The season is over.”

Which brings me back to the net-cutting ceremony in Tallahassee five days earlier, which turned out to be the final game of the season.

Thank goodness, Florida State had the foresight to give this team their “one shining moment.”

We hate it for the student-athletes. We hate it for the fans. But we get it.

And so do a lot of others. Walt Disney World. Broadway. The NBA, PGA Tour, NHL, MLB, MLS are all adopting similar “best practice” policies. They are doing it, at a great loss of revenue, in an effort to abate the transmission of COVID-19, a strain of the Coronavirus.

We are seeing the nation coming together individually in an effort to minimize the spread of the virus.

The NCAA and its members are shuttering operations too. The NCAA suspended all NCAA tournaments in the remaining winter and spring sports.

NCAA President Mark Emmert explained the reason for cancelling the tournaments. “This decision is based on the evolving COVID-19 public health threat, our ability to ensure the events do not contribute to spread of the pandemic, and the impracticality of hosting such events at any time during this academic year given ongoing decisions by other entities.” The last sentence of his statement is something the average person doesn’t think about. How do do you host a tournament anywhere when individual states are suspending gatherings. Like many other states, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended gatherings of 250 people or more.

This was a difficult, abrupt ending to FSU’s season. The Seminoles went 26-5 and were remarkable in so many ways. There was a 16-0 record at home. There were the five straight sellouts at home to end the regular season, which included a heart-pounding comeback win over top-10 Louisville.

SENIORS PROPEL FSU WOMEN TO EIGHTH STRAIGHT 20-WIN SEASON

PHOTO BY MIKE OLIVELLA By ARIYA MASSOUDI

Florida State’s women’s basketball season came to a sudden end with the announcement of all NCAA championships being canceled in the wake of the Coronavirus.

For FSU, which finished at No. 19 in the AP poll, it was a hard pill to swallow after a successful week in Greensboro, N.C., at the ACC Tournament. A run to the title game saw the recipe re-emerge for the Seminoles, who had wins over No. 6 Louisville and a rout of Wake Forest, before falling to No. 8 NC State in the championship game.

Kiah Gillespie, Nausia Woolfoolk and Nicki Ekhomu were excellent throughout the tournament, with the three seniors being named to the All-Tournament team.

An up and down season created many question marks of what the Seminoles could accomplish in the NCAA Tournament. Wins over No. 18 Texas A&M and Michigan on the way to an undefeated non-conference season, gave way to an inconsistent ACC slate that saw a win at Louisville, yet losses to Boston College and Notre Dame at home. Despite the inconsistency, FSU surpassed the 20-win mark for an eighth straight season.

In Greensboro, a semifinal re-match win over the Cardinals provided a season sweep and reaffirmed that FSU could beat anyone in the country when clicking on all cylinders.

“After going up there and pulling out a win I knew they would come out with a lot of fire,” Coach Sue Semrau said after the game. “They did, but we matched it. I’m proud of my seniors. They are something else.”

In that game, the seniors combined for 45 points, including 16 from Woolfolk – who came to life in the tournament in all three games.

“Today it was lay your heart on the line and that’s what we did,” Woolfolk said of getting to the title game. “It wasn’t about scouting, (it was) leave it on the floor, forget everything, and just play and that’s what we did.”

Against NC State in a packed Greensboro Coliseum, with a heavy Wolfpack contingent, the three seniors were incredible once again in combining for 59 points, with 25 coming from Gillespie. The Seminoles held a five-point lead with just under four minutes to play in the game, but fell 71- 66. It once again proved that FSU could make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament and hang with anyone at that.

Unfortunately, it will never be known what this team could do. The Seminoles were unlikely to host the first two rounds in the NCAA Tournament in Tallahassee at 24-8 (11- 7 ACC), but had all the confidence at the right time heading into the season’s pinnacle event.

They say goodbye to their three seniors, all reaching the 1,000-point scoring milestone for their careers. Their leadership and talents will be missed, but the Seminoles will return some key pieces next season.

Sophomores Kourtney Weber, Morgan Jones and Valencia Myers will be asked to step into larger roles in 2020-21. Weber and Jones each showed flashes of what they could be this season, with Webber a gifted offensive talent and Jones a rare breed of athleticism, length and quickness. Myers, a McDonald’s All-American in high school, has the talent level to be a dominant force as she enters her junior year.

Sammie Puisis and River Baldwin, both also former McDonald’s All-Americans, each also provided a glimpse of their abilities during their freshmen campaigns. Puisis shot 40 percent from beyond the 3-point arc on 123 attempts and is poised to be one of the best shooters in school history. Baldwin’s size and strength in the post will be more difficult to deal with as the game slows down for her during her career. Fellow freshman London Clarkson has the frame, tenacity and toughness to also be an asset next season.

However, it may be what wasn’t on the court this year for FSU that could provide the biggest boost. Former McDonald’s All-American point guard Izabella Nicoletti has yet to play a game in Tallahassee in two seasons due to multiple ACL injuries, while Savannah Wilkinson (stress reaction), Amaya Brown (ACL) and Sayawni Lassiter (ACL) each either didn’t play at all or much of the year with their own injuries. Guard Bianca Jackson will also be eligible next season after sitting out the year due to NCAA transfer rules. At South Carolina, she was an essential piece to one of the best programs in the country and will be an immediate-impact player.

As the page turns for a group that was with each other for two seasons, the future of FSU basketball is bright for Semrau. While this campaign ends with disappointing abruptness, it was still a critical year for the program as it continues its march towards the school’s first ever Final Four.