Breaking Down FSU Basketball's NCAA Tournament Chances With 6 Weeks Remaining
Florida State and Leonard Hamilton are coming off of a tough home loss to #3 North Carolina on Saturday to currently sit with a 12-8 record. What chances, if any, do the Seminoles have to make the NCAA Tournament? There are 6 weeks left of the regular season, which will be followed by the ACC Tournament, before Selection Sunday on March 17th.
The Tournament selection process brought out the NET Rankings six years ago, which helps give fans a daily overview of how the NCAA views teams at this point in the season, breaking games into four quadrants, with the highest quality games being Quadrant 1 and your lowest being Quadrant 4, based on opponent played and location.
Florida State has given themselves some life with a strong January, sitting at 87th in NET, to alleviate a horrific December. Let's take a look at the 'Noles' current resume, presented by bballnet.com, as we stand on Monday, January 29th.
The Seminoles are currently 87th in NET, which ranks 11th in the ACC. NC State and Syracuse are just a few spots ahead of them, but it isn't a very strong conference overall.
FSU is being held down by a 2-3 Quadrant 3 record, with losses at home to Georgia and Lipscomb, and a neutral site to USF. UGA and USF are both close to bumping up a Quadrant 2 (UGA would need to be top-75, while USF would need to be top-100) and with USF winning 11 of their last 12, they could easily continue rising if they keep winning. The win over Winthrop has now become a Quadrant 4 win, as Winthrop has fallen out of the top 160, losing 3 of their last 4 games. Florida State would like them to revert course and become a solid team again, just so they're not below .500 in Q3 games.
The two big changes from the weekend: Clemson fell controversially at Duke, but it was enough to bump them up to a Quadrant 1 loss for FSU. UNLV picked up a dominant road win at San Jose State, pushing them into the top 100, which is now a Quadrant 2 win for the 'Noles.
Florida State could get some more help if SMU could bump into the top 30 (they've lost their last two games to North Texas and Wichita State, so not likely to happen any time soon), or if Syracuse could get back into the top 75, those would become Quadrant 1 games. With the ACC not being particularly strong, there are not a ton of chances for quality wins the rest of the way, so they may need to get some additional help from teams they've already played.
Above is their remaining schedule with 11 games left in the regular season, with the number in parentheses being that team's current NET Ranking. The breakdown, as it stands now, is four Q1 games, four Q2 games, and three Q3 games. In an ideal world, Florida State wins the rest of the regular season to almost assuredly get into the NCAA Tournament or they win the ACC Tournament to steal an automatic bid. The first option is pretty unlikely, the second option could happen, as their defensive pressure and depth will be hard to prepare for in the conference tournament.
Florida State can't afford any more trip-ups, so they have to win their three Quadrant 3 games: at Louisville on Saturday, and Boston College and NC State at home in February. They probably can't afford to lose any of their Quadrant 2 games remaining either, though you could maybe get by with a loss against Virginia, depending on how FSU does elsewhere. In Quadrant 1 games, at a minimum, they'd need to go 2-2 in those. As low as Pitt is currently ranked though, I could see a potential FSU win bumping the Panthers down to a Q2 game. The Duke game at home, to me, is a must-win, with FSU only holding one win over a team projected to be in the Tournament: Colorado.
If the Seminoles were to beat everyone except Clemson on the road and let's say Virginia at home, putting them with a 21-10 record (before the ACC Tournament), and if everyone stays around where they're ranked currently, I think that's good enough to be a 10 or 11-seed. They were a 9-seed in 2018 with a 20-11 record, but the ACC was much stronger back then, with 9 teams reaching the Tournament. This year, there'd be 3 if the tournament started today.
Given the opponents left, it's not that out of the realm of possibility that FSU could close 9-2. Only two of those remaining opponents are inside the KenPom top 50 and they've shown they can beat just about anybody. KenPom is more of a prediction-based ranking than a current standing, but they have FSU finishing with an 18-13 record, meaning a 6-5 close. Obviously, that wouldn't be good enough.
There's a lot of work to be done for Florida State, but they're not quite dead yet. As slim as their chances are, they could be helped with an apparent weak bubble this year, with teams that don't have quality resumes.
This week off is a good chance to regroup from the UNC loss and focus on a trip to Louisville that is absolutely a must-win. FSU has dominated the Cardinals in recent years and simply can't afford a loss to the worst team in major conference basketball.
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