This Friday, the Seminoles kick off their 2010-2011 Basketball Season at home against North Florida. This game is essentially a glorified scrimmage as the Ospreys lost their top two players from last season's 13 win team to graduation (the only two players who averaged double figures last year) and Yahoo! Sports doesn't list a center on their roster. UNF isn't a good team. They are currently listed as the consensus 275th best team in the nation. Last year they had losses to Mercer (235th ranked last year), Lipscomb (197th last year), SC Upstate (429th last year), and Stetson (550th last year).

With their tallest player only listed at 6'7 235 lbs, UNF's offense is built around the perimeter and will likely have multiple shooters in the game simultaneously. Their top scoring threat is probably the Tennessee State transfer, guard Parker Smith. Smith gets an unusually high percentage of his 9.0 ppg from the three point line-- 2.0 of his 2.7 field goals made were from outside.

This game should be a blowout. FSU should be able to exploit the height and talent gap on their way to a big win. Most of Florida State's shooting guards should be able to match up with UNF's bigmen so expect our offense to be based around attacking the basket. With such a discrepancy in height, look for FSU to lob the ball to Kreft and Gibson for easy scores around the basket.

Even though the level of competition wont be there, the game should be entertaining. Alley-oops, fast breaks, bold shots from way beyond the three point line, and gaudy statistics should be the norm. Come out to the Donald L. Tucker Center on Friday at 8:30 (seminoles.com says 8:30 but Yahoo! and ESPN say 9:00 so I need some verification for this) to show your support.

Note: Good article about Singleton's off-season preparation vs Kevin Durant.