Florida State (14-9, 5-7 ACC) returns after a bye to play at Wake Forest (18-6, 10-3) on Wednesday at 7 on ESPNU.
This would be a big road win if the Seminoles could pull off the upset. Wake is 68th in KenPom and among Joe Lunardi's last four teams in on Tuesday's projected bracket. FSU's biggest home win is over Pitt, now 42nd in KenPom.
On Monday's ACC coaches' zoom, I asked Leonard Hamilton if he thought last week's announcement about his resignation at season's end could put added pressure on the players to "win one for coach," in my words.
"It has not been an issue that I can see at this particular moment, but I think I'm close enough and I got enough intuition that if it becomes an issue, I'll speak to it," Hamilton said. "Right now. I think we’re in a pretty good place, wanting to finish the season strong. So I haven’t detected that I got any issues now. But I’ll probably start being a little more engaged in that area, just to make sure we don't have anything negative resulting from the situation."
Wake has won three straight, including a West Coast sweep of Stanford and Cal. The Demon Deacons are a bad 3-point shooting team at 29 percent (349th in DI) but they are very efficient inside the arc, shooting 54.5 percent (69th in DI).
Cameron Hildreth (6-4, 195) has scored in the 20s in those three wins for Wake. Hunter Sallis (6-5, 185) had 20 points and 19 points in the wins over Cal and Stanford, respectively.
Efton Reid is a 7-foot, 250-pound F/C. Familiar name as he is someone FSU tried to land coming out of high school. He had 19 points in the win over Cal.
The Seminoles will have Taylor Bol Bowen back after he missed a few games with a concussion. Jerry Deng sounds questionable with an ankle injury.
Malique Ewin earned a double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds in Florida State’s victory over Notre Dame on Feb. 4 – his team-leading eighth of the season and the eighth of his career. The last person with eight or more double-doubles in a single season was Matthew Cleveland who earned 11 double-doubles during the 2022-23 season. The single-season school record for double-doubles is 24 (in 26 games) by Dave Cowens during the 1968-69 season.
Jamir Watkins enters Wednesday’s game having scored 1,457 career points and needs 43 points to reach the 1,500-point career point plateau. The second-year Seminole has also scored 935 points in his 56-game Florida State career and needs 65 points to reach 1,000 points as a Seminole. That would be an impressive achievement as he's in year 2 in Tallahassee. Watkins is ranked fourth in the ACC in scoring (all games, 18.4 ppg).
FSU's next home game will be Saturday against red-hot Clemson (21-5), which is now ranked No. 23 and is coming off wins over Duke and UNC.
This would be a big road win if the Seminoles could pull off the upset. Wake is 68th in KenPom and among Joe Lunardi's last four teams in on Tuesday's projected bracket. FSU's biggest home win is over Pitt, now 42nd in KenPom.
On Monday's ACC coaches' zoom, I asked Leonard Hamilton if he thought last week's announcement about his resignation at season's end could put added pressure on the players to "win one for coach," in my words.
"It has not been an issue that I can see at this particular moment, but I think I'm close enough and I got enough intuition that if it becomes an issue, I'll speak to it," Hamilton said. "Right now. I think we’re in a pretty good place, wanting to finish the season strong. So I haven’t detected that I got any issues now. But I’ll probably start being a little more engaged in that area, just to make sure we don't have anything negative resulting from the situation."
Wake has won three straight, including a West Coast sweep of Stanford and Cal. The Demon Deacons are a bad 3-point shooting team at 29 percent (349th in DI) but they are very efficient inside the arc, shooting 54.5 percent (69th in DI).
Cameron Hildreth (6-4, 195) has scored in the 20s in those three wins for Wake. Hunter Sallis (6-5, 185) had 20 points and 19 points in the wins over Cal and Stanford, respectively.
Efton Reid is a 7-foot, 250-pound F/C. Familiar name as he is someone FSU tried to land coming out of high school. He had 19 points in the win over Cal.
The Seminoles will have Taylor Bol Bowen back after he missed a few games with a concussion. Jerry Deng sounds questionable with an ankle injury.
Malique Ewin earned a double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds in Florida State’s victory over Notre Dame on Feb. 4 – his team-leading eighth of the season and the eighth of his career. The last person with eight or more double-doubles in a single season was Matthew Cleveland who earned 11 double-doubles during the 2022-23 season. The single-season school record for double-doubles is 24 (in 26 games) by Dave Cowens during the 1968-69 season.
Jamir Watkins enters Wednesday’s game having scored 1,457 career points and needs 43 points to reach the 1,500-point career point plateau. The second-year Seminole has also scored 935 points in his 56-game Florida State career and needs 65 points to reach 1,000 points as a Seminole. That would be an impressive achievement as he's in year 2 in Tallahassee. Watkins is ranked fourth in the ACC in scoring (all games, 18.4 ppg).
FSU's next home game will be Saturday against red-hot Clemson (21-5), which is now ranked No. 23 and is coming off wins over Duke and UNC.
