Florida State reacts after its miraculous win. (USATSI)
Florida State reacts after its miraculous win. (USATSI)

Weird things happen in rivalry games. Sometimes, even downright absurdities can occur.

I don't think I've ever seen a game end the way the Florida-Florida State game did, as the Seminoles came away with a 65-63 win over the Gators. 

Let's set the scene. The game is tied at 63, and Florida State has a chance to win it at the end. The best shot they can muster is a corner 3-pointer that looks like it's going to be an airball until this happens:

Jacob Kurtz tipped the ball into the wrong hoop somehow, and the Seminoles get out of Tallahassee with their first big win of the season. That's just an absolutely brutal way for a game to end if you're the Gators, and you can't help but feel bad for Kurtz. 

It's also a really brutal loss for Florida generally, who falls to 7-5 and still really doesn't have a quality win to show for itself in the non-conference slate (sorry, Yale). The Gators' final game before getting into SEC action comes against Connecticut, and that has now turned into a really important matchup for both teams. It's not necessarily an elimination game, but I imagine that the list of teams who start 7-6 and still make the NCAA Tournament is pretty slim. 

Having said that, the Gators have bigger fish to fry than resume issues. Chris Walker has a combined seven points and nine rebounds in his past three games, and still doesn't look like he's ready to contribute regularly. Highly-touted freshman Devin Robinson is in the same boat, and without those two pieces that the Gators were counting on early in the year, they have an awfully thin roster.

Luckily for them, the SEC is pretty weak this year, and Michael Frazier and Dorian Finney-Smith can take you pretty far. But I'm not sure that they've done enough in the non-SEC portion of their season to be a shoo-in for the NCAA Tournament unless they really have a great league run. This was a game that the Gators could ill-afford to lose, and this incredibly unlucky tip-in really hurts. 

Another reason this one really hurts is that Florida State has also had a rough start to its year and has five losses. This is a big one to build momentum for the Noles before conference play. I don't think they have the juice to make a run at an NCAA Tournament bid, but at the very least they have the look of a spoiler once ACC play starts.