CORAL GABLES, Fla. - (seminoles.com) — The Florida State women’s basketball team (6-5, 5-5) suffered a 68-52 loss in its final game of a four-game road stretch to ACC-rival Miami (8-7, 5-7) on Sunday afternoon at the Watsco Center. This is only the Seminoles second regular-season loss to the Hurricanes over the past six seasons.
“We couldn’t stop their penetration and we couldn’t rotate. We let them shoot layups, so they turned it up,” FSU interim head coach Brooke Wyckoff said. “Just in terms of attacking, we couldn’t figure it out.”
Redshirt junior Bianca Jackson finished as Florida State’s leading scorer for a second-straight game, putting up 12 points and two steals. She made two 3-point shots — her first game as a Seminole that she’s made multiple 3-pointers in a game.
Junior Morgan Jones scored 10 points on 4-8 shooting with eight rebounds and three steals. She was two rebounds shy of recording her second-straight double double and her third of the season.
Junior Kourtney Weber came back into the starting lineup and scored nine points after missing the Seminoles’ victory over North Carolina due to a foot injury. Redshirt junior Sayawni Lassiter also scored nine points, along with recording four rebounds and three assists.
Graduate transfer Tiana England, who made her Florida State debut, dished out her 510th career assist in today’s game, which places her fourth on the active NCAA list for career assists.
Florida State was outshot by Miami in both in the second half, 71.4-40.0 percent, and overall, 50-36 percent. Despite outrebounding the Hurricanes by eight, the Noles were outscored in the paint, 48-14, and also allowed 21 points off of turnovers.
“There are no excuses,” said Wyckoff about playing in their fourth-straight road game. “We’ve got to find a way to get it done.”
Defense was the name of the game coming from the tip, with both teams shooting a combined 2-15 to start. Florida State held Miami to single-digits in the first quarter for the second-straight game. Lassiter hit a jump shot at the first-quarter buzzer to give the Noles an 11-7 lead at the end of the period.
The scoring picked up in the second quarter, as Jackson scored six of the Noles’ 13 points off two made three-pointers in the period. The game continued to stay within one possession through the majority of the quarter and FSU took a two-point lead going into halftime.
The Seminoles struggled for most of the third quarter offensively, as they missed eight straight field goals and allowed 26 points in the third quarter. The 26 points was the most allowed in a quarter by FSU since giving up 26 in the second quarter to Louisville last month. Miami came out of the half making eight straight field goals and went on two separate scoring runs of nine plus points to build a 12-point lead going into the final period.
FSU scored back-to-back buckets early in the fourth quarter to bring the deficit back down to single digits, but it wasn’t enough to put together a comeback on the road. Miami scored seven straight points late in the period and put the game out of reach.
