FSU Basketball looking to start 2-0 against another SWAC opponent, Alabama State

The Florida State Seminoles are 1-0 in the Luke Loucks era after a 108-76 victory over Alcorn State and former FSU assistant Jake Morton on Tuesday night. It was an exhilarating win, as two players set major statistical career highs, with one of them setting an FSU record. It was a heck of a debut for Luke Loucks.

They've already beaten one SWAC team (technically two if you count the exhibition game against Florida A&M), and now they'll be facing another in Alabama State, who is fresh off a run to the NCAA Tournament after winning the conference tournament last year.

Alabama State hasn't played a game yet, so this will be their first action of the new season, It will be at 7pm EST on Friday night on ACCNX/ESPN+ from the Donald L. Tucker Center in Tallahassee, Florida.

READ MORE: 3 takeaways as FSU basketball runs Alcorn State out of the gym, 108-76

Alabama State Hornets Breakdown (0-0)

Alabama State is entering its fourth season under head coach Tony Madlock, who led them to a 20-16 record overall and 12-6 in SWAC play, good for 4th in the conference, before going on a run in the conference tournament and winning it. That gave them an NCAA Tournament bid, where they beat Saint Francis in a tight one in the First Four, then weren't exactly embarrassed by Auburn in the Round of 64.

However, they've lost their top three scorers from last year. Their leading returning scorer is Micah Simpson, who averaged just 6.6 PPG last season in a reserve role. He's going to be relied upon to take a huge step forward this season. The same goes for 6'10" forward Jasteven Walker, who started about half of the team's games last year.

Overall, they're returning just 22.6% of their scoring and 25.9% of minutes played from a season ago. One player who could be a big part of replacing that production is Cam Palesse, who was solid for Canisius a season ago. A step down could help him be a really productive player this year. They also seem very high on redshirt freshman R'Chaun King from Memphis, who was at Arkansas State last year, a very respectable program.

Just like Alcorn State, though, they don't have anyone on their roster who averaged double-digit scoring for a Division 1 team last year. Because of that, they're hard to predict. If last year is any indication, though, they're going to put up a lot of threes, and they're going to take great care of the basketball.

This is their first game of the season, but they were predicted to finish 4th in the SWAC, getting a few first-place votes as well. Micah Simpson was Preseason All-SWAC Second Team, too.

Florida State Seminoles Breakdown (1-0)

Well, how about that for a first performance?

Robert McCray V set an FSU record with 17 assists in that game, which is tied for the 9th most in ACC history by an ACC guard. And he did all of that with only two turnovers, which may be the more impressive part of that. For as fast-paced as FSU wants to play, to only finish with 8 turnovers as a team is incredible. That'll be tested in some of these harder non-conference games, but that's a great first effort.

You also had Chauncey Wiggins go for a career-high 22 points, after his previous career high at Clemson was 19. This just looks like a more natural fit for him so far, but he has had to play some small-ball center, which won't fly against Florida next week.

This team definitely needs to work on rebounding, especially for that UF game, and still needs to be better about defending without fouling. But this offense is going to be electric to watch all season. They put up 30 threes, making an efficient 13 of them, and that's probably under the mark of what they wanted to put up. They're also capable of getting to the free-throw line whenever they want, which will be nice in ACC play.

Projected Starters

Florida State

G: Robert McCray V
G: Kobe MaGee
Will Florida State Continue to Force Turnovers
Florida State Seminoles
G: Micah Simpson

Alabama State

G: Micah Simpson
G: Asjon Anderson
Mike Norvell opens up on his future at Florida State after stunning climb down
F: R'Chaun King
G: Robert McCray V

3 Keys to the Game

3-Point Defense

Alabama State has continually increased the amount of three-pointers they take under head coach Tony Madlock. They attempted 27.2 per game last year, which was top 50 in the country. They only made them at about a 32% rate, but they were 11-4 in game in which they shot better than 35% from the line.

FSU just let Alcorn State shoot 8/16 from deep on them, and even if some of them were well contested, that's still way too high of a percentage. and they'll want to be more locked in for this game.

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Florida State seems to have a hard time defending without fouling. It was a major issue in the exhibition game against Alabama, and it wasn't exactly the cleanest on Tuesday night against Alcorn State.

And then there's Alabama State, who were 315th in the country in free throw rate allowed, and they've only gotten younger this year. And youth usually leads to sloppy fouls. Florida State shot 25 free throws against Alcorn State, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that number grow against Alabama State.

Will Florida State Continue to Force Turnovers?

The one thing Alabama State excelled in last year was taking care of the ball, as they only turned it over on 13.1% of possessions, the fourth-best mark in the country. Even though most of those ball-handlers are gone, transfer guard Asjon Anderson only had an 11.1% turnover rate last year at Queens, so he could fit in with that.

Florida State isn't looking to be known for creating turnovers like the last few years under Leonard Hamilton, but they did force 21 turnovers on Tuesday night for a turnover rate of 27.6%, which is one of the better marks in college basketball through the first games. If they're looking to keep that up, this will be a unique challenge for them.

Game Prediction

Florida State opened as favorites by 26.5 points with an over/under of 162.5, per DraftKings.

The goal for Florida State will be to score 100+ in every game, and I don't see a reason why they won't be able to do it against Alabama State. I think this will be slightly closer than the Alcorn State game, but not by that much,

Florida State 103, Alabama State 75

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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READ MORE: Game Preview: Florida State Seminoles at Clemson Tigers

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