With the first game of the regular season a mere nine days away, Florida State will play their second (and final) exhibition game today at 4:00pm. And they didn\u2019t have to look far for their opponent. The FAMU Rattlers, led by Florida State legend Charlie Ward, will make the short ride north to lace \u2018em up against FSU in the Tucker Center. The Rattlers come into the game off a 100-54 exhibition win over Edward Waters College on Monday.<\/p>\n
For first year FSU head coach Luke Loucks, this is a bit of a \u201cpinch yourself\u201d moment. Loucks grew up in a household filled with Florida State fans and said earlier this year that watching the 1993 FSU football team are some of his earliest memories. It\u2019s fitting, then, that Ward will have his basketball jersey honored before the first game Loucks coaches in Tallahassee. You can read more about that in this well-done article<\/a> by FSU\u2019s Deputy Public Relations, Chuck Walsh.<\/p>\n With all the familiarity and festivities, this would be a great game to bring the family. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at this link<\/a>, or outside the arena. If you\u2019re not in Tallahassee but still want to watch, the exhibition will be broadcast on ACCNX.<\/p>\n Preseason Practice Observations<\/p>\n As for the game itself, it\u2019s another important building block for a Florida State team hoping to surprise folks in Loucks\u2019 first season. If the \u2018Noles have any dreams of playing in the NCAA Tournament this season, they will likely need a perfect 8-0 home record in the non-conference portion of the schedule. With nearly an entire new roster, this will be the first time most of FSU\u2019s players will play a game of any kind in the Tucker Center, so it\u2019s a great opportunity to get the feel for sight lines, the visual background, etc. Additionally, while it\u2019s just an exhibition, FAMU is the kind of team FSU will be facing frequently in their non-conference schedule. As I detailed in a piece earlier this week<\/a>, games like this are the type that the Seminoles are going to need to win by 30, so I suspect you\u2019ll see the staff treat this as a dress rehearsal, at least in the first 30 minutes.<\/p>\n Curt and I had an opportunity to observe a full practice a couple days prior to the exhibition against Alabama and we left the practice facility agreeing that if this is the worst team in the ACC, then the league is going to be far better than recent seasons. Here were a few notes and nuggets from that practice:<\/p>\n What are we watching for against FAMU?<\/p>\n The only thing staff, players, or fans truly care about today is that everyone finishes the game healthy. Somerville left the Alabama game early with an injury that seemed minor, but hopefully that isn\u2019t lingering. In order to wear down opponents, the Seminoles ability to withstand injuries is razor thin this season.<\/p>\n That aside, there are a few things we\u2019ll be keeping an eye on today:<\/p>\n Join the comments below to share some of what you\u2019re interested in seeing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the first game of the regular season a mere nine days away, Florida State will play their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,40286,12870,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-368599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-florida-state-mens-basketball-news","11":"tag-florida-state-mens-basketball","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-basketball","14":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115441309017235073","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}