Florida State sits near the bottom of the ACC. The Seminoles can end the slum by beating the Wolfpack.
Florida State men's basketball sits at 17th in the Atlantic Coast Conference standings. And are on a three-game slide.
Saturday serves as a good wake up call to end the latter.
FSU will tip off at noon ET, but 9 a.m. PT against North Carolina State. Which will be aired nationally on ESPN.
Here now is Fernie Ruano with the Betting Preview:
It’s quite fitting that a local bank is sponsoring a promotional gold t-shirt giveaway for the first 1,000 fans that come through the Donald L. Tucker Center before the Florida State Seminoles (7-8, 0-2)host the North Carolina Wolfpack (11-5, 2-1) on Saturday for a noon tipoff in Tallahassee, Florida.
Because the Seminoles, for all their growing pains during head coach Luke Loucks’ first season of rebuilding after taking over for Leonard Hamilton last March, at 7-2 have been nothing but money on their home floor.
Now all Florida State, coming into play today on a two-game losing streak, has to do is earn more respect from oddsmakers at FanDuel Sportsbook, who currently have the Seminoles as a +5.5 home underdog just hours before tipoff.
The Seminoles are +180 on the moneyline.
The over/under is 161.5 points for the ACC Network TV broadcast.
Florida State, in search of just its third win since Dec.22, could be without G Xavier Osceola (hip) while NC State G Tre Holloman (ankle) is also questionable to play.
Robert McCray is averaging 13.9 points, seven assists and 1.5 steals per game for the Seminoles.
Despite FSU going 3-7 in their last 10 games, Chauncey Wiggins (12.6 points average in his last 10 games) has come on over the last 10 games as a solid contributor.
The Seminoles, second in rebounding in the ACC at 12.1 boards are game, are led under the blocks by Alex Steen (3.6 rebounds a game).
North Carolina State (-5.5, -220) is playing its second straight road game and coming off a 79-71 victory over Boston College.
The Wolfpack, 4-1 in their last five games and averaging 84.9 points per game on 48% shooting from the floor, is 1-1 in true road games.
Darrion Williams, coming off a 22-point game vs. Boston College, which included hitting four three-pointers, is averaging 14.3 points a game for NC State.
Early tipoff times can get kind of weird — especially when they involve a bunch of college kids/students, coming in from a long Friday night.
It’s been a rough stretch for the Seminoles, already blown out by this season by Dayton, Georgia, Texas A&M, UMass, Houston and North Carolina.
And it’s likely to get worse as the Seminoles have trips to Syracuse (Jan.13) and Miami (Jan. 20) upcoming, in-between a home date vs. Wake Forest (Jan. 17) next Saturday.
Reality is the ‘Noles are a work in progress and will be for a while longer. But if you really want to have college basketball betting action on this one today, I would look at going over the 161.5 total with the reason being that while the Wolfpack is shooting 38.9% from beyond the arc this season, they give up plenty of three-point opportunities on the other side of the floor as well.