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Welcome to the Florida State basketball rooting guides, where we figure out which teams to hate. The basic premise is that while FSU basketball may be ON the bubble, their season is not progressing IN a bubble. In short, FSU's next 10 games will go a long way in determining if they dance and what their seed might be, but this is also influenced by literally hundreds of games played by different teams in different conferences.
The rooting guides try to identify those games. That way you can tune your television to a random Pac 12 game and actually care about which team wins.
We follow four brackets to figure out where Florida State is currently situated. Those brackets are SB Nation (Chris Dobbertean), ESPN (Joe Lunardi), CBS (Jerry Palm), and the composite Bracket Matrix.
Prior to the win at Boston College this is where FSU stood:
SB Nation: 11-seed (last four in)
ESPN: 1st four out
CBS: 10-seed
Bracket Matrix: First team out
Clearly, FSU is considered a bubble team, so in the rooting guides we look for games that impact the bubble. If Florida State were to advance to a 6-seed, for example, then we'd look for games that would influence that portion of the bracket.
Which games are important? Luckily, Matt Minnick already covered that in detail.
To tonight's games!
Out of conference opponents in action:
Charleston Southern at Winthrop (7 PM)
Jacksonville at Florida Gulf Coast (7 PM)
DePaul at Butler (7 PM, CBSSN)
All three teams are heavy underdogs, so any wins would be great. DePaul has the added bonus of playing fellow bubble team Butler, and if Butler were to lose at home to DePaul.....
Other key games:
St. John's at Seton Hall (7 PM, FS1): Seton Hall will be a huge favorite, but they are right in front of FSU in all three brackets. Go Johnnies!
UMass at St. Joe's (7 PM): St. Joe's will be heavily favored, and a home loss to UMass would be crushing. They're just behind FSU at SB Nation and CBS, and just ahead at ESPN. Minutemen!
Temple at East Carolina (7 PM, ESPN3): Temple had nothing going for them until they beat previously undefeated SMU. Now they're breathing. Go Pirates!
Pitt at Clemson (7 PM, ESPN3): Typically you want the ACC teams you play twice to win, but in this case Clemson is on our heels. It's probably best for Pitt to win, but you could convince me otherwise if you really tried. Pitt! (I think)
Stanford at Colorado (9 PM, Pac-12 Network): Colorado is likely ahead of FSU, and Stanford is in the same boat as the Noles. This is probably one of those games where the loser drops behind FSU, and the winner is in front. Pick your poison.
Boise State at UNLV (11 PM, CBSSN): Boise State has won 12 of 13 and is rolling toward the bubble. Pretty important that they do not generate even more buzz with a road win in Vegas. Rebs!