Peegs.com - FSU self destructs at Northwestern

December 4, 2008

Photos: Florida State at Northwestern

Florida State's perfect start came to a screeching halt on Wednesday night at Northwestern. The Wildcats (5-1) used a 20-2 run in the second half to put away the Seminoles (7-1) 73-59 in their ACC/Big Ten Challenge matchup.

"We self destructed tonight," head coach Leonard Hamilton said following the loss.

The Seminoles led 36-33 at the half but struggled early in the second half and suffered a scoreless drought of more than four minutes during which the Wildcats made their run.

"Even though we were ahead at halftime we had not played very well," Hamilton said. "Tonight was one of those nights where we allowed their execution on offense to cause us to be impatient and we lost our concentration defensively."

They would never recover as Leonard Hamilton's bunch played their worst game of the season in many facets of the game.

FSU turned the ball over 22 times while dishing only 11 assists. The point guard combo of Toney Douglas and Luke Loucks combined for 13 of those turnovers.

"The 22 turnovers were against a very soft press," Hamilton said. "It wasn't an aggressive press, it was a press that backed up and allowed us to make mistakes and we were so indecisive. Some of the mistakes, some of the turnovers we made were almost unforced turnovers where we were not executing tonight."

From the field, Florida State shot 21-of-51 but only 6-of-23 from deep. The Wildcats were only 23-of-56 from the field themselves but a far better 9-of-17 from the perimeter. The Seminoles were 11-of-19 from the charity stripe while Northwestern was 18-of-31.

"We were out of sync offensively," Hamilton said. "The first half we had some trouble with their 1-3-1 and then we solve that. We come back out in the second half and we lost our defensive discipline."

Finally, on the boards, Northwestern held a 41-33 advantage on the evening.

Douglas scored 21 points to lead the Seminoles and Uche Echefu added 14. Craig Moore led Northwestern with 20 points.

The Seminoles will now return to Tallahassee to host their in-state rivals, the Florida Gators, on Sunday at 6:00 p.m. in a game that will be shown on FSN.

AP contributed to this story.