Florida State will try to snap its longest losing streak in nearly three years when it hosts Lipscomb on Wednesday night in Tallahassee, Fla.
The Seminoles (5-4), who opened the season as a Top 25 team, lost their third in a row on Sunday in heartbreaking fashion when Malik Osborne’s 3-pointer bounced off the rim as time expired, sealing a 66-65 loss to South Carolina.
Florida State let a 16-point first-half lead slip away, committed 17 turnovers, and is now in the midst of its longest skid since January 2019.
“In the four games we lost, it is kind of similar,” Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton said. “We’ve been ahead at halftime of (three of) the four games that we’ve lost, which shows we are doing some things right, but because we’ve kind of faded in the four games we’ve lost, it means that we have a lot of work to do.”
Osborne finished with 15 points and nine rebounds and is averaging 11.8 points and a team-best 7.4 rebounds per game. Caleb Mills (team-high 12.7 points, 2.3 steals per game) also continues to excel in his first season with the Seminoles after transferring from Houston.
Lipscomb (5-6) has dropped four games in a row with its most recent loss coming against Tennessee State on Sunday, 73-65.
Will Pruitt led Lipscomb with 14 points and Parker Hazen finished with 12 points, but the Bisons trailed by as many as 19 in the second half after Lipscomb coach Lennie Acuff pulled all five starters. Their return sparked a 21-7 run that cut the deficit to 70-65, but it wasn’t enough.
A big reason for the Bisons’ struggles has been the absence of center Ahsan Asadullah (17.0 points, 9.8 rebounds per game), who missed his fifth consecutive game with a leg injury.
“We’ve just got to be better in the first half,” Pruitt said. “We had 10 turnovers coming out of the first half, and I for myself have just got to be better, and we’ve got to be better as a team.”
–Field Level Media