It’s almost game day in Tallahassee as Florida State men’s basketball takes on the SEC’s LSU Tigers, giving the Seminoles one final chance to work out the kinks before the regular season begins.
The Seminoles welcome the Tigers to the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center on Saturday afternoon for their first home game of the season, giving students, fans and alumni a chance to see what Luke Loucks has built in his second year leading the program.
For fans, an exhibition game may not mean much, but for Loucks, it’s the final opportunity to get his team ready before the regular season begins. From pregame preparation to game-day routines, Loucks is treating the exhibition like a regular-season matchup.
“We're treating this like a real game,” Loucks said “All of those things leading up to the game, you don't want to experience that for the first time when the results matter.”
Loucks isn’t just asking his players and staff to treat this as a real game. He’s also working to get the student body to show up and buy in for the matchup against the Tigers.
“I have, I think, 30-plus of the fraternity and sorority presidents coming over to my house. To have pizza with my family and a couple of our players,” Loucks said. “The reason I'm talking about that is I want this to be like a hostile, lively environment in our arena. I want this to feel like a real game.”
Even before the season starts, Loucks is already working on building excitement around the program at the grassroots level by connecting with student leaders.
He hopes those efforts will create a louder, more energetic atmosphere at the Tucker Center and give the Seminoles a significant home-court advantage.
The Seminoles played just one preseason game this season, an 82-71 win over Auburn.
Florida State was also scheduled to face Mississippi State, but that exhibition was cancelled because of a hurricane.
Loucks is taking full advantage of this opportunity to work out any kinks and identify mistakes before the results start to matter.
He’s doing so by following the same pregame routine Florida State will use on Nov. 2 against Florida A&M when the regular season begins.
From scouting the opposition two days in advance and studying its depth chart and offensive sets to Saturday morning’s game-day walkthrough, Loucks is treating this exhibition no differently than he would a February matchup against Duke.
The process is already paying dividends, allowing Loucks and his staff to identify mistakes before the regular season begins.
“We made a couple of mistakes as coaches this morning that we had to correct on the fly, which I thought was really good for us,” Loucks said. “You want to go through some of those things and clean up those mistakes, all the way down to your preparation and scouting before these exhibition games.”
Saturday’s exhibition against LSU gives Florida State one final opportunity to evaluate its progress before the regular season begins and prepare for an early test against in-state rival Florida on Nov. 10.
A win over the Gators would allow the Seminoles to make an early statement that they belong in the national championship conversation.
The Gators will travel to the Tucker Center for Florida State’s third game of the season, leaving Loucks with little time to get a team that returns just four starters from last season to develop chemistry, build consistency and learn to play together.
That makes every opportunity for live game action, including exhibitions, incredibly important if the Seminoles hope to pull off the upset.
Florida has the second-best odds to win the national championship, according to FanDuel, at +600. Duke has the best odds at +500. Florida State is set to face the Blue Devils on Feb. 16.
Loucks and the Seminoles have little time to prepare their rebuilt roster for the challenges ahead.
Saturday’s matchup against LSU will give Loucks one final look at his team before the games start counting, and an early-season showdown against Florida will offer the Seminoles a chance to prove just how good this team is.