Welcome into Courtside with Coach J. Ride.

By now, you know who our co-host is, Jacob Ridd-Ridenauer, a long-time college basketball coach, now a current television analyst with ESPN Network and the ACC Network.

And hopefully you know some of you know me, Irish Ophel, managing editor of Wardchant.com.

We're here to talk Florida State basketball, as we do every week.

We have been enjoying this run now that the Knowles have been on.

Took an L this week, Tuesday night, but still another good week, Florida State,

one on the road, one at Notre Dame, come back home.

They lose that game to Virginia, but they're right there kind of where they want to be

going into the last, you know, several weeks of the ACC season. So how's it going, Jacob? How are you doing? Hey, I'm good, man. It's good to see you again. You're right. It's been a good week and a good couple of weeks and a little speed bump here midweek for Florida State. Yeah, I mean, we'll go back to the Notre Dame game first, but I just touching on that Virginia loss real quick. I mean, it certainly is not a, a game that it's a, it's at this point in game because they let it slip away. It's not at this point in game that you lose to Virginia. Virginia is a really good basketball team. They were number 15 in the country. You were a, I think, seven or eight point underdog and led for most of the game.

Actually had a seven or eight point lead in the second half and lost the game.

So it's heartbreaking, but certainly not a blemish on their resume.

But let's go back before that to the Notre Dame game where Florida State goes on the road.

And, you know, again, just so impressive, get out to a huge early lead.

I think it was like 18 to nothing or something. It was 20 something to 7. I mean,

they just were shooting the lights out. Chanty Wiggins was unconscious. Really couldn't be playing

at a better level. You've, you know, certainly been on the sideline, been on the coaching staff

for some games like that where you get that huge early lead. And I think sometimes people feel like, okay, you're just going to coast now. Like in baseball, if you're up seven to nothing in the two innings, you're probably going to win that game. And football, if you're 21, 28 nothing in the first quarter, you're probably going to win that game. Basketball games tend to kind of come back the other way a little bit, and this one of those. What was it like watching them, and did you expect Notre Dame to make that run? Well, you know, it's kind of like, it's funny. They were kind of stagnant for a minute, both of them knew. The first couple of possessions was kind of nothing was really happening. And then all of a sudden, Florida State just started popping threes. And, and like, you know, Chauncey Wiggins, who ended up with 22 points and, you know, McCray hit a couple. It's just everybody kind of got hot and they opened it up. And, and you talk about being on the sideline. You're right. You know, it's like you've been on both sides of it. We had a game way back in a day at Auburn against Ole Miss. And ironically, Michael White was the point guard at Ole Miss at time. Who's the head coach at Georgia? And like they were ranked. They may even been ranked hard in us, but we just jumped on them and ended up beating them by 40 something, right? Like it was just out of control. They had no shot to catch up. That hardly ever happens. You know, like usually, like you said, you jump out 15, 20-point lead. It's, you know, like in the NBA, they say everyone makes a run. So teams make a run back. And that's kind of what happened to Florida State. You know, they got a shot back from

Notre Dame. And it's, and it's almost like you, and sometimes I feel like the team, the, the, the, the team that's out to the hot start

sometimes, you kind of maybe, it's just hard to keep your focus, right? Like, it's hard to keep executing at a high

level when you know

you're, I don't know if you get bad habits or what happens. It seems like it's harder to focus

once you get that big lead. Well, I think, you know, and you make, I'm glad you'd reel me back in on

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