Florida State basketball in preseason polls, projections

Polls

Florida State comes in just outside the top 25 in each of the two major college basketball polls, coming in at No. 28 in the preseason AP Poll and at No. 26 in the USA Today Coaches Poll. This equates to a possible early ranking for the ‘Noles if they can get off to a quick start to their season.

ESPN

Dick Vitale put FSU at No. 21 in his preseason power rankings of the top 40 teams.

21. Florida State Seminoles

Dwayne Bacon and Xavier Rathan-Mayes decided to return, making Leonard Hamilton very happy.

Ken Pomeroy

Noted college basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy has Florida State ranked as the 40th best team and the 10th best ACC team according to his college basketball ratings, making the Seminoles a borderline NCAA Tournament team. For some perspective, a season ago FSU finished the year as the 48th-ranked team in Pomeroy’s rating system.

Sports Illustrated

SI’s college basketball projections have the Seminoles as the No. 44 team in its complete rankings of Division I basketball, 11th in the ACC, and projected to be in an NCAA Tournament play-in game saved for the final four teams added into the field. It’s not an ideal result for Florida State, requiring an extra game, but for a team that has not made March Madness since 2012, it would be a welcome return at whatever cost.

SB Nation

Ricky O’Donnell of SB Nation put together a preview of the FSU basketball team as part of the site’s preseason coverage, ranking the Seminoles as the No. 21 team in the SB Nation countdown.

Leonard Hamilton is the winningest coach in Florida State history, yet he enters his 15th season facing newfound pressure that it might be now or never for his Seminoles. Florida State has reached the NCAA Tournament just four times under Hamilton, most recently in 2012, but the coach has spent the last few years putting in major work on the recruiting trail. The result is a 2016-17 team that might be the program’s most talented in over two decades.