The first measuring stick matchup of Luke Loucks’ tenure begins tonight as Florida State men’s basketball (2-0, 0-0) takes on the defending national champions, Florida (1-1, 0-0), in Gainesville.
After
two straight home blowouts to begin the season, FSU hits the road for the first time in 2025 to try to stem the tide in the FSU-UF rivalry. The Seminoles have lost four straight games to the Gators, all by nine points or more, and have not defeated UF since before COVID. It will not be easy to leave Gainesville with a win after Florida head coach Todd Golden reloaded in the portal and kept some key pieces from last year’s group as his program attempts to win back-to-back national titles.
Not only will tonight’s game be a vital barometer during the dawn of the Loucks era, but both teams try to play similarly and are heavily based on analytics. While FSU will most likely try to play faster, and UF’s monstrous size does not compare to the smaller Seminole lineup, it will be noteworthy to see how far the Noles need to go to reach a national championship level.
The Seminoles are 16.5-point underdogs according to FanDuel, and the over/under for tonight’s game is 180.5
Florida State Seminoles vs. Florida Gators: How to watch, stream, odds
Date
- Tuesday, November 11
Time
- 7:00 p.m. ET
Watch/Stream
- Channel: SEC Network
- Stream: WatchESPN/ESPN App
Listen
- Seminoles Radio Network
- FSU Broadcast: Ch. 119 or 193/SXM App
Spread
- +16.5, Florida State
Over/Under
- 180.5 points
Notes to know
- Coming off its third national title in the last 20 years, Florida is currently tied for the third-shortest odds to win a second consecutive championship, according to Hard Rock Bet. That is because of the excellent job the Gators did in replacing the talent they lost to the draft, as well as retaining their own players. In the backcourt, in an effort to fill the shoes of Walter Clayton Jr., Alijah Martin and Will Richard, Florida went out and got two of the highest-rated and most expensive pieces in the portal in G Xaivian Lee from Princeton and G Boogie Fland from Arkansas. However, in the frontcourt, multiple pieces from the title team stayed in Gainesville, including Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon and Ruben Chinyelu. The Gators are about as deep and experienced as any team in the country and their depth will test Florida State.
- Luke Loucks dropped an interesting nugget in his postgame press conference last Friday with the local Tallahassee media. Loucks mentioned that he developed a relationship with Todd Golden while coaching for the Sacramento Kings, and Golden coached at the University of San Francisco; their wives also became good friends. Obviously, the two headed back east to run their respective programs, but paid their dues in the Bay Area.
- It is incredibly early in the year to be looking at stats, but Florida does lead the country in offensive rebounds per game after finishing 12th in 2024. If Florida State has a chance to win, they have to find a way to keep the Gators from punishing it on the boards. More likely, tonight will serve as a wake-up call that FSU does not have the frontcourt size to consistently compete with the best in the country, and Loucks will need to get creative to address this issue throughout the year.
Players to know:
- F Thomas Haugh: Haugh is the opposite of the modern-day college athlete. He waited his turn and after two years as an understudy, he appears to be stepping into the spotlight. Against Arizona in Florida’s opening game, Haugh dropped 27 points and played 38 minutes. In the Gators’ home opener, the junior finished with 12-8-4 during 26 minutes of game action. Haugh became an integral role player in UF’s run a season ago, playing in 40 games and averaging 24.5 minutes a night. This season, Golden will count on him to turn from a role player into a star.
- F Alex Condon: Condon flirted over the offseason with declaring for the NBA Draft, but decided to stay and school and looks to build on an impressive sophomore campaign. Condon averaged over 10 minutes a game while playing 25 minutes a night in 2024 and both of those marks should see increases in 2025. The 6’11” forward went for a 25-10 double-double in Florida’s win over North Florida on Thursday and his size and length will be a chore for FSU to handle inside.
