On Thursday, the ACC released opponents for the 2026-27 men’s basketball season. The schedule is not yet set, but Florida State now has its season opener set, a matchup with Florida A&M in Tampa on Nov. 2, and knows who it’s going to be playing in conference during Luke Loucks’s second season as the head coach in Tallahassee.
That list of ACC opponents includes the top two contenders coming out of a busy offseason. FSU will host Louisville, which went on a major spending spree in the Transfer Portal to rebuild its roster, including bringing in Flory Bidunga from Kansas, Jackson Shelstad from Oregon, Karter Knox from Arkansas, and getting five-star freshman Obinna Ekezie Jr. to reclassify to 2026. The Seminoles will visit Duke, the conference’s perennial powerhouse and reigning champion.
However, those matchups may not be the biggest measuring stick for Loucks’ program; a home-and-home with in-state rival Miami should serve that purpose.
FSU's home-and-home with Miami will be critical to measure Luke Loucks's progress
In the expanded 18-team ACC, there aren’t many opportunities for regular-season rematches in the conference slate. Last season, Miami and SMU were the only programs that FSU had a home-and-home with, and this year, it will be the Hurricanes and Brad Brownell’s Clemson Tigers.
In 2025-26, FSU split with Miami, winning 65-63 on the road in January, and falling 83-73 a month later in Tallahassee. Miami, though, clearly had the upper hand as both programs entered new eras behind young first-year head coaches. Jai Lucas bolstered his reputation as an elite recruiter with an immediate turnaround, leading the Hurricanes to a 23-win improvement behind transfers Malik Reneau and Tre Holloman, and five-star freshman Shelton Henderson.
Miami went back to the NCAA Tournament as a No. 7 seed and is on a clear upward trajectory. Henderson has returned with another strong portal class around him, and Lucas seems to have Miami knocking on the door of legit ACC contention, currently sitting with the four-best national championship odds among ACC teams according to the FanDuel Sportsbook.
Loucks, however, won just one more game than Leonard Hamilton did in his final year, so he’ll need a major second-year improvement to catch Lucas and Miami. A strong portal haul and the 11th-best high school class in the country, headlined by huge four-star center Marcis Ponder, should help to make up that ground on paper, but the regular home-and-home matchups with the Hurricanes will provide the proof.
While FSU is playing Charlie Ward’s Florida A&M Rattlers to open the year, Miami is measuring itself against Florida, the potential preseason No. 1 team in Tampa. Todd Golden clearly has in-state supremacy from Gainesville, but next season, and those two matchups in particular, could determine which in-state rival is the top contender.
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