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Syracuse will play its second of three straight home games Saturday against Florida State for the second time this season. Both teams are picking up victories — with SU beating Pittsburgh and FSU knocking out Miami on Tuesday — and are currently in the middle third of the Atlantic Coast Conference standings.

Against the Panthers, the Orange (8-8, 2-3 ACC) snapped a three-game losing streak to cut their record to .500, with head coach Jim Boeheim stating after the game that they played ” the best who (they’ve) really played all year” in the second half. Buddy Boeheim led all scorers with 24 points, connecting on five 3-pointers after hitting four in the previous two games combined while his older brother Jimmy Boeheim added 18 points and seven rebounds, but Jesse Edwards fouled for the fifth straight game despite not committing a foul in the first half.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Seminoles (9-5, 3-2) ahead of their 3 p.m. visit to the Carrier Dome.

All Time Series

Syracuse leads 8-5.

The last time they played

The Orange trailed by eight points at halftime on December 4, 2021, but stormed into the second half – hitting 50% of their shots in the final frame – and held off a late FSU push for obtain a 63-60 victory. Buddy managed just six points, his fewest since scoring two in December 2020 against Northeastern, while other SU players like Joe Girard III (16 points), Cole Swider (16 points) and Jimmy (13 dots) picked up the rating load.

Boeheim called the victory a “brave win”, as the Seminoles shot just 28% from the field in the second half – 4 for 30 on 3-point total – and it marked Syracuse’s second straight win after returning of the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas. But according to ShotQuality, the Orange are only winning this game 17% of the time based on each team’s shots, and the website predicted an 80-69 SU loss with those shots. Caleb Mills led Florida State with 16 points while Malik Osborne added 10 points and eight rebounds.

KenPom Odds

Syracuse has a 56% chance of winning, with a projected score of 76-74.

The Seminoles Report

Florida State won its second straight game on Tuesday and in doing so ended Miami’s nine-game winning streak by beating the Hurricanes 65-64. RayQuan Evans hit a pair of free throws in the final second to regain the lead, finishing with 11 points overall while shooting 4 of 8 from the field. Since Syracuse and Florida State last met, the Seminoles have gone 4-2 with wins over the Hurricanes, Louisville, NC State and Lipscomb — though the three conference wins have all been in the single digits.

Their defense ranks 31st nationally in adjusted efficiency, according to KenPom, and they rank 23rd, 20th and 10th respectively in defensive turnover, block percentage and steal percentage. FSU also leads the ACC in steals per game with an average of 9.86, with Evans’s highest steal percentage of 4.2 ranking 47th nationally.

Offensively, Mills leads the Seminoles in scoring with an average of 12.6 points per game, while Osborne converted 19 of 46 3-point attempts to lead them from beyond the arc. Osborne connected on two of FSU’s 3 the last time he played at Syracuse.

How Syracuse Beats FSU

If Florida State took 30 3s again, it probably won’t be just four like the Seminoles did when the teams met five weeks ago. But the Orange could win this game by forcing FSU to a similar percentage from behind the arc while finding a way to create more scoring opportunities against a defense that limited Buddy to just six points last time they met.

Swider’s ability to compile points if the Seminoles bottle Buddy again could serve as the most important key, especially if the zone defense returns to its porous identity from the first 15 games. Against FSU in December, Swider took a season-high 15 shots and tied for the team lead with 16 points. Boeheim has repeated throughout the recent series of games that he is looking for Swider to be more aggressive with his shot selection, capitalizing on and converting open looks when they emerge. That opportunity could come against a defense that allowed Swider to get those shots earlier this season.

Stat namely: 79.4 inches

Florida State is the tallest team on average – at 79.4 inches – in the nation, a stat that takes into account the height of players who have played more than 10% of their team’s minutes and weighs it by their total count minutes played, according to KenPom. Syracuse ranks fifth in this stat, with an average height of 78.9 inches, and much of that is down to their short forward and shooting guard height, which ranks third and fifth respectively in the nation.

For the Seminoles, their best ranking in the category comes from the height of the No. 1 point guard, the height of the No. 3 shooting guard and the height of the No. 7 center.

Player to watch: Matthew Cleveland, guard, No. 35

Cleveland didn’t start a game for Florida State in its freshman season, but it averages 22.3 minutes per game off the bench and ranks third among the Seminoles with 10.8 points per game. He also leads FSU with 4.8 fouls fired per 40 minutes.

The 6-foot-7 guard from Atlanta, Georgia, was named to Julius Erving’s watch list — presented annually to the nation’s best small forward — and also earned ACC freshman honors from the week earlier in January, after his 13-point, nine-rebound outing against NC State two days prior. Cleveland shot just 18.8% from behind the arc on their 16 chances and 56.5% on free throws, despite shooting the second-most foul shots on the team (46). But on Jan. 8 against Louisville, he showed his potential by tying his career high with 17 points while shooting 7 of 8 from the field in 27 minutes.

In FSU’s game against Syracuse on Dec. 4, Cleveland scored six points in 18 minutes — hitting two of six while shooting three free throws. His role has gradually grown since then, as he has now exceeded more than 20 minutes of time on the pitch in three of the last four games, and could be someone who is capable of attracting Edwards, or other strikers from Syracuse in foul trouble Saturday while attacking. the space inside the 3-point arc.