March Madness is here, and the bracket has been released. It is one of the best times to be alive for sports fans. Unfortunately for Florida State fans, they were not invited to the NCAA Tournament. This wasn't a surprise since the Seminoles suffered horrible defeats early on to knock them out of contention.
However, head coach Luke Loucks had a successful first season with the Seminoles, where he had an incredible turnaround in the back half of the year. When Florida State had the blowout loss to North Carolina State, the future of the program looked bleak. He and his staff went to work to fix issues and find a way to build an identity to win basketball games.
The Seminoles had won 11 out of their 14 games going into the matchup against the Duke Blue Devils in the ACC Tournament, but Florida State ultimately fell short in that one, where they lost by a score of 80-79.
The future looks bright for head coach Luke Loucks and the Florida State basketball team
When the average fan looks at the ACC as a whole, they think about teams such as Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia, with Florida State being in the shadows. Football usually gets a large share of the revenue at a place like Florida State anyway, but this year showed that deserve a fair shot at getting the resources it needs.
Coach Loucks remained confident in his team, where he routinely stated that no one wanted to play the Seminoles because they were playing like one of the top-25 teams in all of college basketball. He went on social media on Sunday afternoon to share his thoughts about Florida State after the bracket dropped.
Congratulations to all of the teams that were selected for the NCAA tournament. It is the best tournament on Earth. @FSUHoops will be invited to the party soon enough and we won’t stop working until we get back to dancing every season.
— Luke Loucks (@lukeloucks) March 15, 2026
I see a lot of teams we would beat right…
The statement by Coach Loucks has to get fans excited because he mentioned that the expectation is for Florida State to be in the NCAA Tournament every year, and they won't stop working and putting in the work. The Seminoles have a long road ahead to getting where they want to be, but we at ChopChat have confidence that Florida State can get it done.