Seminoles, Gators move up in AP poll
After two wins by a combined 66 points last week, the Florida State men’s basketball team climbed only one spot to No. 14 in the latest Associated Press top 25 rankings on Monday.
The Seminoles (20-4, 8-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) rebounded from losing two consecutive road games to unranked teams with an 18-point road win at Miami and a 48-point blowout of Clemson on Sunday.
FSU’s recent two-game win streak saw the Seminoles play some of their best basketball of the season, outside of beating five of six ranked teams during a January stretch to begin conference play.
The Seminoles sit second behind No. 8 North Carolina (21-4, 9-2) in the conference standings and will host NC State (14-10, 3-8) on Wednesday at 7 p.m. before ending the regular season with four of six games on the road.
The Seminoles are projected to be a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament starting in the East region against No. 14 Florida Gulf Coast in Orlando, according to Monday’s ESPN Bracketology with analyst Joe Lunardi. FSU hopes to make its first NCAA Tournament since 2012.
No. 17 Florida (18-5, 8-2 Southeastern Conference) is also projected as a No. 3 seed in the Midwest region, also starting in Orlando. Bulls fans curious about how their offense will look under new coach got a hint Friday from running backs coach
Speaking on the Big 3 Rollup podcast, USF’s second-year assistant suggested it will resemble the spread breakneck-tempo system installed by at Baylor. New Bulls offensive coordinator was a graduate-assistant for Briles at Houston in 2005.
“Well yeah, [the offense] is gonna change,” King told 247Sports.com’s
on the podcast. “Sterlin Gilbert is here and Sterlin's from that Baylor tree. So and if you think Baylor and
and ... and all those running backs they’ve had come through those systems, that’s what we’re gonna bring to this conference, to this program.”
During Briles’ last season at Baylor in 2015, the Bears led the nation in total offense (616.2 ypg), ranked second in rush offense (326.7 ypg) and were 24th in pass offense (289.5 ypg). Baylor averaged 85 plays a game that season, spreading defenses the width of the field and sometimes making post-snap adjustments.
As coordinator at Texas last season, Gilbert’s unit finished 17th in the nation in rushing (239.3 ypg) and 50th in passing (252.0 ypg). The Longhorns’ 999 plays in 12 games were more than USF totaled (928) in 13 contests.
“That system’s a system that you need speed and talent, and I think we have both of those in abundance on offense, so we'll be fine on offense,” King said. “I think we’re gonna throw it a little more than we have in the past, but we’re gonna run it about the same.”
UCF’s biggest surprise on National Signing Day was losing defensive end
to Texas in the final hour. But Knights coach
surprised almost everyone the next day by introducing
as the newest member of the Knights’ 2017 recruiting class.
You win some, you lose some. The takeaway here is that Frost isn’t afraid to get in the ring to wrestle with the far better-resourced Power 5 schools.
“I think we signed some players that are really good players and some players that some Power 5 schools were interested in trying to get, and they decided to come to UCF,” Frost said. “Inevitably, I think as you're recruiting those players, there’s going to be some of those schools that come in that are going to beat us a majority of time in recruiting. We’ve lost quite a few kids to decommitments in this class.
“One thing I’m proud of is that, even though, we don’t want to lose those kids, those kids are going to LSU, Texas, Kentucky and places like that. We’re battling with those schools and winning our share of battles.”