Everyone loves Florida State vs. Clemson basketball. One of the greatest traditions out there. In tonight’s contest Florida State managed to blow an early 2nd half 16 point lead. Hold onto your seats because this is going to be a good one and as with most basketball games it came down to the final minute.
Nole fans were slightly perturbed by the foul shot discrepancy. At one point it was 24 attempts for the Tigers to 5 for the Seminoles with 8:38 remaining in the game. This isn’t a typical Florida State team though. Their bigs actually suck. There is no more Bernard James to bail them out. They have a few unproven foreign guys and a JUCO guy that had to redshirt last year because he would have been useless so Clemson may have chosen to attack. Either way, it was pretty ridiculous. Maybe not as ridiculous if you are familiar with Jamie Luckie’s referee work.
The crowning moment of Luckie’s jewel of a game came with 37.9 seconds left on the clock. It was a 3 point game, in favor of FSU at this point. The Noles’ PG Devon Bookert got a rebound and was being pestered by the Clemson defense as their desperation was in full force. Now if you take a look below it appears Bookert may have grazed the chin of the Tiger’s freshman guard Adonis Filer, but it was hardly what one might call……flagrant?
Well after about 5 minutes of reviewing the play on the monitors (what happened to conclusive evidence like in football?) that is exactly what Luckie called it. A flagrant foul.
Alright, you may be saying, well I guess I could see that, but what if I told you that Filer was also whistled for a foul (non flagrant) on that very same play? That would blow your mind right? Well your mind just exploded because that is what happened. Bookert proceeded to shoot his free throws and then Filer was awarded 2 free throws and Clemson got the ball. Both made 1 of 2 so it was still a 3 point game but now Clemson had the ball back. I’m sure Nole Nation was ready to hop on that horse and ride it all the way to Little John Coliseum in South Carolina so they could firmly plant the spear directly through the eyes of Jamie Luckie.
To cap it off we get to see FSU’s head coach, Leonard Hamilton, smile as Luckie explains the impossible to him. I guess what else can you do when you are dealing with ineptness to that magnitude?
Florida State ended up winning the contest 71-66 so nobody had to kill themselves tonight.
