By Jerry Ratcliffe
Even though his Florida State team had won four of its last five coming into Tuesday night’s home game against 15th-ranked Virginia, the Seminoles’ rookie coach Luke Loucks knew he was in for a unique challenge.
UVA wasn’t your run-of-the-mill ACC opponent. Ryan Odom had done a masterful job in building his roster, backed by an NIL treasure chest.
Looking over the Cavaliers’ roster in preparation for the game, Loucks’ jaw dropped.
“You go down the list [of UVA players] and it’s like grown man, grown man, grown man, grown man, grown man,” Loucks said after Virginia pulled out a last-minute, 61-58 victory, the Cavaliers’ seventh road win in eight games. “It’s tough to beat those teams. I thought we gave every ounce of what we had and that’s why we were right there in the game.”
Loucks’ Seminoles were there alright. They led the entire second half until Virginia finally gained the lead with only 71 seconds left to play and escaped Tallahassee with another close call.
For a complete blow-by-blow account of the game, box score, notebooks and video highlights, see Scott Ratcliffe’s related article here.
Jacari White, 52 days after breaking his left wrist during a dunk against Maryland, rode to Virginia’s rescue. On a night when Loucks game-planned to negate the Cavaliers’ most-grown man, Thijs De Ridder, and the rest of UVA’s offense was somewhat stagnant, White returned to his normal lethal self.
Playing in front of his family (White’s from Orlando), White was virtually unstoppable in the second half when he scored 16 of his team-high 19 points, including a flurry of 3-pointers, his preferable choice in delivering a dagger.
Down 9 with about 8 minutes to play, White drilled a pair of triples and a midrange jumper, combined with a Ugonna Onyenso dunk to draw within a possession (57-55) with 5:12 to play before De Ridder’s midranger led to White’s final bucket of the night, a drive to the hoop for a 59-58 lead with 1:11 to play.
That was a portion of an 11-1 Virginia run to close out the game as the Cavaliers turned up their defensive intensity. FSU, now 11-13, 4-7, didn’t score a field goal over the final 6 1/2 minutes and missed its last 11 shots.
“It felt really good just to give our team that spark,” said White, who hit 7 of 11 shots, including 5 of 7 from the arc. “I felt like we really needed it as the game was kind of getting away from us. I’m just grateful to be able to bring that energy off the bench and help the team win.”
Odom, who wanted to limit White’s ballhandling because of the protective device still on the guard’s hand, said the sharpshooter was “the old Jacari.”
Yeah, the same one who set the Virginia record for most consecutive 3-pointers made (12) during a multi-game stretch in December.
“He was tremendous tonight,” Odom commented. “Jacari was huge for us. He made some big shots, some that were certainly not by design.”
Certainly that was no surprise to Loucks, who tried to get White out of the transfer portal.
“Lot of praise for Jacari White,” the FSU coach said. “For him to put on the performance he did tonight off the bench, when really the rest of their team was struggling to score, was very impressive. He’s a big-time competitor. When a shooter like that sees one or two going uncontested — I know a couple of them were deep, 5, 6 or 7 feet behind the 3-point line, and our hands were in our pockets. When a great shooter sees the ball go in, that psychologically makes the rim get bigger.”
Virginia’s offense was again out of sync, but the defense was solid. It was the third straight game that the Cavaliers (21-3, 10-2) held an opponent to less than 60 points (Pitt 47, Syracuse 59, FSU 58).
The Seminoles shot a mere 29 percent for the night (18 of 62) and 18 percent from the arc (6 for 33). Had it not been for the free-throw line, FSU might not have maintained the lead most of the night (27 minutes, 12 seconds to only 7:40 for Virginia). The hosts were 16 of 22 at the foul line, compared to only 5 of 8 for the Cavaliers.
“The guys just hung in there,” Odom said. “It was just a gritty win. Not many ways to describe it other than that. The defense certainly led the way for us, just to stay in the game. To hold [FSU] to 58 in their gym and do it in a really good way, I’m really proud of that.”
