The NCAA’s initial tournament seedings released: FSU basketball gets a top seed

Update: So here’s how the current seeding looks.

1. Baylor (South)
2. Kansas (Midwest)
3. Gonzaga (West)
4. San Diego State (East)
5. Duke (East)
6. Dayton (Midwest)
7. Louisville (South)
8. West Virginia (West)
9. Maryland (East)
10. FSU (Midwest)
11. Seton Hall (South)
12. Villanova (West)
13. Auburn (South)
14. Oregon (West)
15. Butler (East)
16. Michigan State (Midwest)

So for the Seminoles, that would mean coming through the Midwest Region that works ultimately through Indianapolis. The top seeds in the region:

1. Kansas
2. Dayton
3. FSU
4. Michigan State

We’ve been checking back in with NCAA Tournament projections for a while now. Love them or hate them, they provide snapshots of just how Florida State basketball is being judged on a given day. Today, the NCAA will release its top 16 seeds for March Madness— and Seminoles everywhere will be waiting to see if FSU makes the cut. The ’Noles are currently ranked 14th in the NCAA’s NET rankings.

Obviously, these seedings are not set in stone, but they’re not really a projection, either. This is the actual NCAA Selection Committee saying that if the bracket were populated right now, these would be the top 16 teams. Of course, there’s a lot of basketball left to be played, however in the three years the NCAA has been releasing these mid-season projections there has been a good bit of foreshadowing for the real bracket later in March.

When FSU made it as a 2-seed during the inaugural reveal in 2017, the Seminoles landed as a 3-seed in the actual tournament six weeks later. And across the entire three years, only nine teams moved up into an eventual top-4 seed after not making the cut during the mid-season version.

Another reason FSU’s inclusion as a top-4 seed would be no small deal is that top-4 seeds are given geographic preference, and that means that the ’Noles would be in good shape to play their first two games in nearby Tampa, as we detailed in our most recent projections piece. Check back here, as we’ll update this piece when the seedings are released.