FSU basketball’s place in the latest NCAA Tournament projections

In the ACC, any win a team can get is huge, and home-court advantage is tremendously important. Both of these proved true on Wednesday night, as FSU secured an 88-77 home victory against Georgia Tech, behind a career performance from Terance Mann.

Despite the important win, which brought the Seminoles to a .500 record in ACC play, they still remain as an 8-seed in the latest bracketology of ESPN’s Joe Lunardi. After rising to its current position from a 9-seed on Monday’s bracketology, Florida State is still projected to play in the Midwest regional’s Detroit venue.

However, one change is that Lunardi has the ’Noles opening their tournament appearance against 9-seed Alabama, which would prove a challenging match-up considering the prolific play of Crimson Tide freshman guard Collin Sexton. Pending a win, FSU would then most likely take on 1-seed Purdue, which would certainly make Leonard Hamilton’s team earn its 15.6% chance of making it into the Sweet 16, per TeamRankings.com.

Similar to Monday’s bracketology, Lunardi’s projection parallels that of BracketMatrix.com, where the Seminoles remain an 8-seed and are included in all 91 brackets consulted. TeamRankings.com gives Florida State a 66.5% chance of making the tournament, with a slim 2.6% chance of making the Final Four and an even slimmer 0.3% chance of winning it all.