Louisville Cardinals (6-15, 1-9) vs. Florida State Seminoles (12-8, 6-3)
Game Time: 8 p.m.
Location: KFC Yum Center: Louisville, Ky.
Television: ACC Network
Announcers: Mike Monaco (play-by-play) and Randolph Childress (analyst)
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Favorite: Florida State by 5.5
Series: Louisville leads, 34-18
Last Meeting: Florida State won 81-78 on Feb. 4, 2023 in Louisville
Series History:
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Probable Starting Lineups:
G Skyy Clark (6-3, 205, So.)
G Tre White (6-7, 205, So.)
G/F Mike James (6-5, 200, R-So.)
F Kaleb Glenn (6-6, 205, Fr.)
F Brandon Huntley-Hatfield (6-10, 240, Jr.)
Florida State
G Darin Green Jr. (6-5, 195, Sr.)
G Jalen Warley (6-7, 205, Jr.)
F Jamir Watkins (6-7, 210, R-Jr.)
F De’Ante Green (6-9, 210. So.)
F Baba Miller (6-11, 204, So.)
Statistics:
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About Florida State:
After a fairly disastrous run during its non-conference portion of the season, Florida State currently finds itself sitting at 6-3 in the ACC and alone in fourth in the conference standings. The Seminoles’ outside shot at making the NCAA would likely be torpedoed by a loss Saturday night against Louisville.
The Seminoles have had success in league play thanks primarily to their defense. FSU ranks 38th in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency, and has only allowed one opponent since Dec. 9 to breach the 80-point mark. The Seminoles are forcing turnovers on 21.3 percent of their defensive possessions, the 29th-best rate in Division-I.
Junior forward Jamir Watkins, a VCU transfer, has been the team’s engine so far this season. He leads the team in both scoring (13.9 ppg) and assists (3.0), but his biggest impact may come on the defensive end. Watkins enters Saturday’s game with 97 career steals, and needs just three to reach the 100 steals mark for his career. He has 31 steals in his first season at Florida State and totaled 64 steals in his two seasons with the Rams.
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If you’re looking for the candidate to go off from deep against the Cards, look no further than Darin Green Jr. (12.1 ppg). Green enters Saturday with 349 career made 3‐point shots. He has made 141 triples as a Seminole, and knocked down 208 during his three‐year career at UCF.
Louisville’s point guard issues — both Skyy Clark and Ty-Laur Johnson will be game-time decisions — could doom them in this one. Florida State, which has earned double‐figures in steals in nine games – including four ACC games – enters the weekend as the conference leader in steals with 9.3 team steals per game average. The Seminoles totaled 11 steals in their last game against North Carolina, and 10 in their last road win at Syracuse.
Notable:
—Florida State is riding a seven-game winning streak over Louisville for the first time in the lengthy series between the two programs. Before this current run, the Seminoles had only once won back-to-back games over the Cardinals, and that happened all the way back in 1978.
—U of L’s longest winning streak over FSU is nine games, which lasted from 1978-1982.
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—Louisville is looking to avoid going winless against Florida State (barring an ACC tournament meeting) for a fourth straight season.
—FSU has won four of its last five games over Louisville by at least nine points, including a 22-point win in their first of two meetings last season.
—Louisville point guards Skyy Clark and Ty-Laur Johnson are both nursing injuries (shoulder and ankle, respectively) and will both be game-time decisions.
—Four of Louisville’s six wins this season have come while trailing at halftime. The Cardinals have been outscored by 154 total points in the first half this season, but have outscored opponents by 32 after halftime.
—Florida State has won three consecutive ACC road games.
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—Louisville hasn’t beaten Florida State at home since Jan., 2016.
—The Cardinals haven’t beaten the Seminoles at all since an ACC tournament first round win in 2018 under interim head coach David Padgett.
—Florida State’s Leonard Hamilton enters Saturday’s game against North Carolina as the fifth winningest coach in ACC history with 416 wins. He is also the fifth winningest coach in ACC history for ACC regular season victories (165), ACC regular season and ACC Tournament wins combined (191). He is sixth in the ACC record book for ACC road wins (68), and eighth in ACC history for NCAA Tournament wins as an ACC Head Coach (18).
—Louisville is 6-9 all-time in games against Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton. The Cards are 4-9 against Hamilton at FSU, and went 2-0 against him during his time at Oklahoma State.
—Florida State enters Saturday’s game against Louisville having won an NCAA record 14 consecutive overtime games. The Seminoles’ streak began with a 101‐90 win in double overtime against Syracuse on January 13, 2018.
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—Louisville is 3-28 in ACC games under the direction of head coach Kenny Payne.
—Louisville is 223-15 over the last 20 seasons and 20-3 over the last three when scoring 80 points or more. The Cards are 4-1 in such games this season.
—Since 2004, Louisville is 129-0 when leading by more than 10 points at halftime.
—Louisville has won 162 consecutive games when holding an opponent under 50 points.
Ken Pomeroy Prediction: Florida State 78, Louisville 71
A white Florida woman who fatally shot a Black neighbor through her front door during an ongoing dispute over the neighbor’s boisterous children was sentenced Monday to 25 years in prison for her manslaughter conviction.
Susan Lorincz, 60, was convicted in August of killing 35-year-old Ajike “A.J.” Owens by firing a single shot from her .380-caliber handgun in June 2023.
The shooting was the culmination of a long-running argument between the two neighbors over Owens’ children playing in a grassy area near both of their houses in Ocala, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Orlando.
Prosecutors said Owens had come to Lorincz’s home after her children complained that she had thrown roller skates and an umbrella at them, which Lorincz denied. Trial testimony showed Owens, a mother of four young children, was pounding on Lorincz’s door and yelling, leading Lorincz to claim self-defense in shooting her neighbor.
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Lorincz told detectives in a videotaped interview that she feared for her life. She also said she had been harassed for most of the three years she lived in the neighborhood.
“I thought I was in imminent danger,” she said.
Jurors did not agree with her self-defense claim.
Owens’ family pushed for the maximum prison sentence after Lorincz was convicted by an all-white jury.
“While the pain of losing Ajike, we are hopeful that justice will prevail and that the court will give Susan Lorincz the maximum penalty for her actions,” said Owens’ mother, Pamela Dias, in an email statement before Monday’s sentencing. “Ajike’s legacy will live on through her children, and we will continue to fight for justice.”
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Lorincz’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Amanda Sizemore, sought a more lenient sentence, an unspecified term below the 11.5 years in prison that is the lowest for her crime under state guidelines. Sizemore said in court documents that there are several reasons to justify a downward departure, including a mental disorder and claims that Owens was the aggressor and under “extreme duress” during the confrontation.
There were protests in the Black community in Ocala when prosecutors took weeks to charge Lorincz with manslaughter, a lesser count than second-degree murder, which carries a potential life prison sentence. Marion County, which includes Ocala, has a Black population of about 12%, according to census figures.
It’s been a good couple weeks for Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier. He’s picked up two long-awaited SEC wins. One is his first win over LSU and another is his first top-10 win since the Gators beat No. 7 Utah in his first game as their head coach.
ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg made sure to give him some love in their college football Week 13 takeaways.
He considers Napier, along with Oklahoma’s Brent Venables and Auburn’s Hugh Freeze to have further redeemed themselves with big wins on Saturday.
“But Napier, Venables and Freeze all strengthened their profiles and elevated hope for the future by leading their teams to signature wins in Week 13.”
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Rittenberg was impressed by Florida’s continuing to bend but not break on defense and the performance of true freshman quarterback DJ Lagway. This all culminated in what could have spoiled Ole Miss’ playoff ambitions.
“Napier, whose Florida team had outclassed LSU the week before in The Swamp, likely eliminated Ole Miss from CFP contention with an excellent second half. A Gators defense that struggled early allowed only three points in the final 39 minutes and intercepted Jaxson Dart twice in the closing minutes, and Florida got impressive play from its own young quarterback, DJ Lagway.”
Napier was also given credit for having shown “real signs of promise before Week 13.”
Florida took No. 8 Tennessee to overtime, losing 23-17. But more impressively took Georgia down to the wire despite Lagway being carted off with a hamstring injury. While the final score was 34-20, those who watched know that it was a one-score game until about four minutes to go. That gave Florida props, but now he’s beaten ranked opponents.
Now, Florida has a shot to finish with its first winning record since 2020 and win its first bowl game since 2019.
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Rittenberg concluded his takes by saying Napier, along with Vernables and Freeze, has given “tangible evidence to cite that better days might be ahead.”
Western Carolina Catamounts (2-2) at Florida State Seminoles (6-1)
Tallahassee, Florida; Tuesday, 7 p.m. EST
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BOTTOM LINE: Western Carolina plays Florida State after Cord Stansberry scored 20 points in Western Carolina’s 82-69 loss to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons.
The Seminoles are 3-1 on their home court. Florida State is 5-1 when it wins the turnover battle and averages 12.4 turnovers per game.
Western Carolina finished 11-8 in SoCon action and 10-6 on the road a season ago. The Catamounts averaged 11.3 assists per game on 28.2 made field goals last season.
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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
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