Florida State men's basketball trying to regroup vs. Syracuse while chasing milestone

The Florida State men’s basketball team’s recent history at home has been sweet for some time.

But the present is a trying time for the Seminoles.

Injuries to key players, a time of mourning for one of its best, and an early-season adjustment period for others has FSU looking to steady its course as it comes off a 93-65 blowout loss to second-ranked Purdue this week.

Still, on Saturday afternoon, the Seminoles have a chance to make more history.

When FSU takes on Syracuse at 4 p.m. at the Tucker Civic Center, it will try to match the longest home winning streak by an ACC team against conference opponents set by Duke when it won 26 in a row from 1997-2000.

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FSU beat Syracuse 80-77 in the teams’ previous meeting at the Tucker Center on Feb. 15, 2020.

“This is a unique opportunity for us on Saturday,” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said Friday morning. “It’s not something that we planned for or that we talked about, but it has developed and a lot of people have been a part of it.

“Since a lot goes into this everybody can take pride in helping us get to this point. We're still not there yet, and we have probably the most challenging type of team that we've had in the past. So we need everybody to be on board with us on Saturday.”

The Seminoles (5-2) will still be shorthanded heading into their ACC opener and Hamilton announced they’d be without a key member of their starting lineup longer than expected.

Starting center Tanor Ngom (right knee), who missed Tuesday’s game at Purdue, is expected to miss at least the next six weeks. Hamilton said Ngom, who suffered the injury during practice last week, had his leg in a cast and would likely need time even after he’s cleared to return to get back into the flow of playing consistent minutes.

Hamilton said he does expect center Naheem McLeod (ankle) to be available after missing the Purdue game, and that there’s a chance starting point guard Rayquan Evans would be available as well. Evans has missed the past two games to be with his family after his brother lost a battle with leukemia, and attended his funeral earlier this week.

Hamilton said Evans flew back to Tallahassee late Thursday night, but wasn’t sure if he’d be ready mentally to return to the court on Saturday.

“We'll talk to him about his availability and we'll see where his mindset is,” Hamilton said. “It’s always challenging when you lose a loved one. And there's a period that you have to give people time to make the adjustments in their own way. Our heart goes out to him because they were very close to his family.”

Syracuse a tough opponent to set win record against

Regardless of what FSU’s lineup looks like, Syracuse (4-3) won’t make it easy for the Seminoles to make history.

The Orange are coming off a 112-110 double-overtime win against Indiana and are averaging 83.4 points per game with all five starters averaging double figures in scoring.

Hall of Fame Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim’s sons, Buddy and Jimmy are two of those main contributors with Buddy leading the team in scoring with 21 points per game. Jimmy Boeheim is averaging 14.3 points and 6.4 rebounds per game. Guard Joseph Girard III is one of the conference’s most dangerous outside shooters, hitting 23 of his 43 attempts (53.5 percent) from 3-point range this season.

Center Jesse Edwards (12.6 points, 5.3 rebounds) and forward Cole Swider (12.7 points, 6.4 rebounds per game) lead Syracuse’s frontcourt.

With a more inexperienced roster still getting acclimated, Hamilton believes Syracuse’s biggest threat is its signature zone defense, which has frustrated his teams at times in the past.

“It became apparent to me as we were going through a game plan how starry-eyed our first-year players became just learning how to execute specific systems against a very good and well-known zone defense,” Hamilton said. “It’s obvious to me that the learning curve is still high in terms of development of our basketball team. I like this team. I like the energy they've given us and we expect to continue to grow and improve.”

Hamilton said despite the lopsided loss against Purdue, he’s confident such experiences will help his team further along in that developmental process and prepare them for the full conference schedule which begins December 29th.

The Seminoles have four more non-conference games after Syracuse including matchups with South Carolina at the No Room for Racism Classic in Rock Hill, S.C. on Dec. 12th and UCF in the Orange Bowl Classic in Sunrise, Fla. on Dec. 18th.

“We're going through a period of regrouping with a group of veterans that are accepting different roles, guys whose status in a program, they’re going from being support players to leadership guys and we have a number of first-year players that are kind of growing into who we are and what we're about as a program,” Hamilton said. “And so we have a lot of adjustments that we're making.”

Florida State men’s basketball vs. Syracuse

When/where: 4 p.m., Tucker Civic Center, Tallahassee.

TV/Radio: ACC Network/101.5 FM.

Reach Andre Fernandez at afernandez@tallahassee.com or follow him on Twitter @FernandezAndreC.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FSU men's basketball team seeking to tie major ACC record vs. Syracuse