{"id":512586,"date":"2026-01-02T21:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T21:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/512586\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T21:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T21:47:10","slug":"duke-vs-florida-state-prediction-pick-odds-spread-where-to-watch-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/512586\/","title":{"rendered":"Duke vs. Florida State prediction, pick, odds, spread, where to watch live"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 6 Duke<\/a> is 12-1 with wins over NCAA Tournament teams like Kansas<\/a>, Arkansas<\/a>, Florida<\/a> and Michigan State, and yet it enters 2026 with questions aplenty after a second-half collapse to Texas Tech<\/a>, followed up by Wednesday’s sweaty, six-point win over Georgia Tech<\/a> as a gargantuan 27.5-point favorite.<\/p>\n

Are we making a mountain out of a molehill? Perhaps, but even Jon Scheyer seems to be searching for the right combinations. Duke shifted the starting lineup for the third time against Georgia Tech, inserting freshman point guard Cayden Boozer<\/a> into the fray and diverting wing Nik Khamenia to the second unit.<\/p>\n

We’ll learn about the mental fortitude of this Duke team because even though a date with ACC frontrunner Louisville<\/a> looms on Tuesday, it has to get past 7-7 Florida State<\/a> before it can get started on the Cardinals’ scout. First-year ‘Noles coach Luke Loucks is 0-5 against high-major teams, but if Florida State can push Florida, it can get up for Duke.<\/p>\n

Let’s dive into the ins and outs of this ACC matchup.<\/p>\n

Duke vs. Florida State: Need to know<\/p>\n

High-variance tilt: Florida State zooms up and down the floor at a breakneck pace and tries to shoot as many 3-pointers as possible. FSU’s offense has the fifth-fastest average possession length, and 54% of its shots come from downtown. Loucks doesn’t have\u00a0Alabama’s<\/a>\u00a0star power yet, but he is using Nate Oats’ game plan on offense. Shooting this many 3s opens up the door for some wild outcomes … good and bad. So far for Florida State, it’s been mostly bad. They shot just 9-for-41 (22%) from downtown against\u00a0Texas A&M<\/a>\u00a0and got smoked by 36 against an Aggies club that is in a similar tier from a talent perspective. We have yet to see FSU get it rolling from downtown against a high-major team. Duke surely doesn’t want to become the first team that lets FSU’s barrage of snipers get hot, or a dogfight could emerge.<\/p>\n

Will FSU keep Duke from hanging on rims?\u00a0North Carolina<\/a>\u00a0threw down 12 dunks against Florida State on Tuesday. That was the most UNC had in a single game since 2011. Now, FSU has to face off against\u00a0Cameron Boozer<\/a>\u00a0and Patrick Ngongba? That’s no fun. There are easy buckets to be had in the paint against this Florida State defense that is vulnerable when it cannot generate takeaways.<\/p>\n

Will Duke’s leaky pick-and-roll defense get shored up?\u00a0Texas Tech’s\u00a0Christian Anderson<\/a>\u00a0took a blowtorch to Duke’s pick-and-roll defense, and Scheyer had to pivot to a zone defense in the second half to find some answers after Georgia Tech’s ball-handlers were creating far too many advantages. Duke will have its hands full with FSU point guard\u00a0Robert McCray V<\/a>, who ranks sixth in the country in assists (7.1).\u00a0Caleb Foster<\/a>\u00a0will get the first turn, but Duke’s switch-heavy defense means anyone on the floor better be ready to sit down and try to guard McCray.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where to watch Duke vs. Florida State live <\/p>\n

Date: Saturday, Jan. 3 |\u00a0Time: 3:45 p.m. ET
Location: Tucker Arena — Tallahassee, Florida
TV:\u00a0CBS\u00a0|\u00a0Live stream:\u00a0CBSSports.com<\/a>,\u00a0CBS Sports App<\/a>
Streaming on\u00a0Paramount+ Premium<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Duke vs. Florida State prediction, picks<\/p>\n

Making a billion 3-pointers (in reality, like 22 treys) feels like Florida State’s only hope to spring this upset. Everything else screams Duke in this one. FSU is a poor defensive-rebounding team. Georgia<\/a>, Florida and UNC all corralled 15+ offensive rebounds. Ngongba, Cameron Boozer and Maliq Brown<\/a> should be licking their chops to go to war on the glass. Plus, the pivot to playing Cayden Boozer with Caleb Foster in a two-point guard look should pay dividends in this one. Florida State will pressure the basketball relentlessly. Having two point guards who can break that first wave of pressure should unlock a ton of advantages in this one.<\/p>\n

I also do not think FSU has enough capable ball-handlers outside of McCray to consistently break down this Duke defense. Duke has been so good at grinding teams to a halt with its switches. If that happens, Florida State has to hope McCray goes nuclear because there’s not a ton of other true switch-beaters on this FSU roster. If it attacks the paint, does its thing on the glass, blankets the 3-point stripe, controls the tempo and moves the ball without panicking, Duke can run away with this one.\u00a0Pick: Duke -15<\/p>\n

Who will win and cover in every college basketball game?\u00a0Visit SportsLine to get picks from the model that simulates each game 10,000 times<\/a>\u00a0and is up more than $1,200 for $100 players on its top-rated spread picks the past six years.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 6 Duke is 12-1 with wins over NCAA Tournament teams like Kansas, Arkansas, Florida and Michigan State,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,691,71550,71553,71554,71552,71551,17880,231,772,1544,71549],"class_list":{"0":"post-512586","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-duke-blue-devils","11":"tag-duke-vs-florida-state-game","12":"tag-duke-vs-florida-state-pick","13":"tag-duke-vs-florida-state-prediction","14":"tag-duke-vs-florida-state-time","15":"tag-duke-vs-florida-state-tv-channel","16":"tag-florida-state-seminoles","17":"tag-ncaa","18":"tag-ncaa-basketball","19":"tag-ncaab","20":"tag-where-to-watch-duke-vs-florida-state"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115827706761687611","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512586","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=512586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}