No. 18 FSU basketball firms up as a high seed in new bracketology projections

Going 9-1 in your last 10 ACC games doesn’t suck. Florida State knows, because the No. 18 Seminoles have done it, following a win over Notre Dame on Monday night. How many other ACC teams can claim as much? It’s a short, elite list: No. 3 Duke and No. 5 North Carolina.

That’s right: the highest ranked AP Poll team in this perennially stacked conference, No. 2 Virginia, has gone 8-2 over its last 10.

The rest of the ACC’s best have shown just how difficult the ACC is. No. 20 Virginia Tech has won 7 of its last 10, and the other top teams in the conference, which aren’t even ranked, have gone 6-4 (Syracuse) and 5-5 (Louisville). So maybe FSU fans wanting to set their hair on fire after the Seminoles’ loss to UNC should chill a bit.

Because the national media still holds the ’Noles in quite high regard. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi updated his bracketology early on Tuesday morning, and he still has the Seminoles as a 5-seed, opening play in the West Region’s San Jose venue, against 12-seed New Mexico State. Following that, Joey Brackets has Florida State meeting the winner of 4-seed Wisconsin and 13-seed Old Dominion, with a prospective matchup against top-seeded Gonzaga awaiting in the Sweet 16 in Anaheim. That’s if the Zags can overcome the 8th-seeded Orange in Salt Lake City.

Checking in on other predictions, SB Nation has FSU as its top 5-seed, while CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm has the ’Noles a line higher, as a 4-seed in the West. He has Florida State beginning with 13-seed Yale in San Jose, with the victor of 5-seed Iowa and 12-seed Lipscomb on deck.

Big picture? Bracket Matrix, which is presently averaging 112 bracket projections, has the Seminoles as the top 5-seed, 4 hundredths of a point behind Kansas State for the last 4-seed, and tied with Maryland. Y'all, we’re talking about two figures behind the decimal point— this is fun.

FSU dropped a spot to No. 18 after Monday night’s games in the KenPom Rankings and remained at No. 26 in the NET Rankings.