Florida State Basketball Predictions 2010-11
November 12, 2010
For the second consecutive year the Florida State Seminoles finished with a sound enough resume to play in the Big Dance, but once again were beat in the opening round, as they fell to Gonzaga in the opener 67-60. Florida State ended up 10-6 in the conference for the second consecutive season, but will have a tough time repeating in 2010, as they lost two of their top post players from last year in Solomon Alabi and Ryan Reid. Head coach Leonard Hamilton has turned this program around over the last five years, as Duke, North Carolina, and Maryland are the only schools that have won more conference games over that time period. For a general idea of what the Seminoles will look like this season, here is short breakdown of what the Seminoles return from last year and the players they have added to the team during the offseason.
Looking at the college basketball lines for the upcoming year, Florida State currently has the fourth best line to win the ACC at +800, but aren’t likely to do much if they get into the tournament, as they currently have +6000 odds to win the National Championship.
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Backcourt: The Seminoles bring back all of their guards from last season, but in order for them to remain one of the top teams in the conference they are going to want a big time season out of junior Chris Singleton, who put up 10 points and 7 boards and was also named the ACC Defensive Player of the Year. Singleton spent a lot of time with NBA players to improve his all-around game this offseason, as the Seminoles desperately need him to put up more points this year. Senior Derwin Kitchen and junior Luke Loucks will likely split time at the point guard position, and better get the job done early or Hamilton could turn to freshman Ian Miller. Coming off the bench behind Singleton is sophomore Michael Snaer, who made the ACC All-Freshman team, and junior 3-point specialist Dievidas Dukys, who connected on nearly 40% of his shots behind the arc last year.
Frontcourt: There is no doubt that the team is going to miss the inside presence of Alabi and Reid. While neither really provided a ton of offense, they were excellent defenders and really kept locked down the paint. Replacing Alabi and Reid will be junior college transfer Bernard James and redshirt freshman Jon Kreft. James figures to do a lot of the dirty work on the boards, while the Seminoles believe Kreft is a more talented offensively than either Alabi or Reid. Junior Xavier Gibson has continued to improve and will likely take on James for the starting role inside, but either way figures to be a very vital piece to the Seminoles success this year.
Prediction – 6th ACC: I believe Florida State is the wild card team of the conference this season, as I think they could be very good and at the same time I could see the Seminoles being a disappointment. Offensively they really don’t have a lot of scorers other than Singleton and I think they are going to be hurting on defense with the loss of Reid and Alabi on the inside. The Seminoles were the third worst scoring team in the ACC last year and ended up dead last in free throw percentage. Even if the defense can step up, I just don’t know if they will be able to score enough to compete with the best teams in this conference. While my expectations aren’t high, there is still enough talent for this team to make it back to the Big Dance, but I can’t see them lasting long if they make it.
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