With nearly a week off since playing three games in three days during the Maui Invitational in Asheville, North Carolina, the Hoosiers have been chomping at the bit to get back onto the court for another game.
IU will get its chance to return to the court when it plays Florida State University at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Tallahassee, Florida, in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. Last season when the two teams faced off in the same event at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, the Hoosiers walked away with a convincing 80-64 win over the future ACC champions.
However, this year’s Florida State team is very different than the team IU faced last season. The Seminoles were a veteran team last season who relied on two experienced starters in Devin Vassel and Patrick Williams, who were both lottery picks in the 2020 NBA Draft. This season, Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton said his team is still trying to figure itself out.
Florida State has only played one game this season, defeating the University of North Florida 86-58 in its season opener Dec. 2.
“Unfortunately, I need to do a little experimenting because I have inexperienced players,” Hamilton said on a Zoom call Monday. “That’s kind of where we are. Whether or not we’re trying to find ourselves, I’m still trying to find out who can do what and I’ve only had 40 minutes to do that.”
Despite the Seminoles’ new personnel, the team’s makeup and system remain the same from last season. They are a tall, long and highly athletic team who applies consistent full-court pressure and attempts to trap team’s smaller guards.
To prepare for the matchup against an uncommon combination of size and pressure, junior guard Rob Phinisee said the team has put a heavy emphasis on ball protection and breaking the press while taking the ball up court in practice.
“They are stunning. I think they stun you when you look from top to bottom,” IU head coach Archie Miller said. “It has got to be one of the biggest teams in college basketball year in and year out. Not just inside, but the perimeter guys are all very, very physically gifted, long and athletic … you don’t see very many teams like it.”
Another aspect IU likely won’t see again all season is a player like Florida State’s freshman point guard Scottie Barnes.
Barnes is a matchup nightmare for almost every team in the country. At 6-foot, 9-inches, he has the body type of a forward and the ball skills and quickness expected from a much smaller guard. Barnes was the seventh-ranked recruit in the class of 2020 and was named the Preseason ACC Freshman of the Year alongside being named to the Preseason All-American Third Team.
In Barnes’ first game, he did it all for Florida State totaling eight points, a team-high six assists and a team-high six rebounds in 24 minutes.
“Scottie Barnes is a really highly decorated player coming out the door,” Miller said. “He creates a lot of problems defensively. He is six-foot-nine on the perimeter, and they are doing a lot of switching and a lot of denying. In transition, he is really good and into half court. He seems to run their team the way they want him to run the team, and he doesn’t have a problem doing that.”
For the Hoosiers, they are going to rely on sophomore forward Trayce Jackson-Davis to once again be a leader on the court for the team. In IU’s last game against Stanford University on Dec. 2, Jackson-Davis had a career night scoring a career-high 31 points.
Despite Florida State’s size and strength throughout its lineup, Hamilton said stopping Jackson-Davis will be tough for his team to accomplish.
“Jackson-Davis is a man-child,” Hamilton said. “He is a mature, confident guy. He’s a handful. I haven’t seen anyone keep him from doing what he does. He’s just efficient with no wasted motion. I don’t know I’ve ever coached anybody in all my coaching career that’s had 13 double-doubles in a season, and he did it as a freshman.”
Miller has consistently said early in the season that IU will succeed this season, only if Jackson-Davis plays at an extremely high level. His performance Wednesday night as two of the young stars in the NCAA face-off may just be the deciding factor.
