EXCITEMENT: Florida State Basketball’s BRIGHT Future With Luke Loucks & ELITE Recruits

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For the State Basketball Falls 80-79 to Duke, but this is a basketball team and a program

to be excited about.

You are Lockdown Seminoles, your daily podcast on the Florida State Seminoles.

Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

But back into Lockdown.

Seminoles, I'm your host, Brian Smith, doing a quick recap after Florida State's 80-79

loss to Duke in the ACC tournament.

I'll have to admit, I'd watched Florida State play a few times this year, but never all

the way through wasn't necessarily all that interested all the time, because did know

a lot about the program, did know a lot about Luke.

The little bit I watched I was excited, but seeing this team play tonight and then looking

at their recruiting class, if you're not excited about what's ahead for Florida State

Basketball, you need to go back and watch and I'll give you my overview.

There are a couple things to look at statistically that you can't go wrong with here, but this

is overall just an exciting brand.

They attack, they attack, and they attack.

I grew up in Indiana where basketball was king.

I know what it looks like.

I grew up literally in the county where the movie Hoosiers was made.

This is the kind of basketball anybody could be excited about from any era.

When you add the kind of talent that Luke has recruited, they've got a top 10 class where

there's a don't know, including one Mr. Porter's down low, that's 6'11, 3'20.

They're going to be a different team next year.

They got out rebounded horrifically tonight by the way, 46-25 by David.

Florida State just doesn't have the post-claim to make it happen.

The boozer, those guys played basically just basketball in their own style, which was

just more physical, more powerful underneath, and that was the difference at the end, but

Episune, McCray taking a shot at the end had a chance to win on the last shot.

If it wasn't for some mis-free throws and just some mental heirs, they were up like,

what was it, 69-61 or something like that at one point?

The Duke went on their patented run, got back in it, and Florida State battled, like they

gave up like a 13-14 point run, and they just never gave up.

Again, they attacked, they attacked, and they attacked.

I love it.

If you like up and down basketball, guys with a lot of athleticism, and no fear, look

out, coaching them, this is a lot of fun to watch, man.

I just tuned in today, didn't know if I was going to do a show or anything, but I'm

honestly just like really impressed.

Again, basketball was my first love, and this was one of those things where I didn't

really know what it was going to be like, because it's Duke, but then I saw Duke's

got a couple of guys out.

I could really hinder him, and Porta State's been hot, they've won some games here lately.

Maybe this would be a pretty good game.

I didn't know Porta State was this good, though.

Here are a few stats overall on the night, and by the way, I'll get Jones.

That Duke can't absolutely knock him down.

He had a couple shots like with Booser in his face, falling away, draining threes, like

NBA shots.

Yeah, he is a really impressive guy.

For the night, Jones, he came up with 28, I'm a cray.

He had 25, and then Wiggins, he knocked down 13.

He didn't play bad, but in fact, he might have had the most efficient night.

It's just he has to play defense to do other things.

Again, they're not the biggest team, but Porta State, despite their front line size, man,

they get after it.

Again, the key, though, that's stat line.

I had to read this twice.

Rebound for FSU 25, Duke 46, holy moly, that's really crazy.

MAM had 10 boards, a brown for Duke, had four points, yeah, 12 boards.

That's a good effort by him.

Porta State needs to shoot three throws a little better.

That is one thing I know for sure.

They really, like, one of the things that has hurt Porta State in certain games this

year when they lost, they've shot a pretty low three point percentage.

They actually outshot Duke.

One even close Duke from three to night, I believe they were 29%, I mean, it was bad.

Yeah, they were 10 for 34 to 29%.

Porta State, they were 11 for 28.

You'll take 39% every single night that you shoot.

There's no way around it.

Unfortunately, the one guy that was knocking him down, holy cow, was he ever Evans.

He was, he had seven triples for Duke.

He was just a guy that Forta State did not close out on him as good as they should have.

They probably needed a few more breaks in terms of him not just being lights out, but that's

on Porta State.

They got to get better defensively.

Their effort on defense is not where it needs to be.

I'm sure Luke knows that.

There was some key seniors, et cetera.

But with this recruiting class, it's pretty impressive.

And I want to kind of set the stage wide for to state fans need to look at this as more

than just a football school.

Again, I've talked about this for a softball, it's good, baseball is good, other sports

are good.

With Luke, you're recruiting the way he is.

This is a program that, barring something very unforeseen like this is his own reminder.

He's not going anywhere.

I couldn't Forta State be a top 10 basketball program.

They absolutely can be.

When you can recruit the way this guy does, and you're as passionate about FSU as Luke is,

and you play this brand of basketball.

Of course you can, absolutely you can.

We come back, I want to talk about the recruiting class a little bit, and I'll pull it up on

the screen.

And we'll go over, as a matter of fact, let's just pull it up right now.

I'll share my screen real quick, and then we'll come back to it.

But there's no reason that you couldn't do this and have some serious fun with this, because

like, look at the size, like Marcus Ponder, by the way, that's the kid I mentioned.

For those of you watching on the screen here, if you're watching this live, he's 6-11-3-20-something.

That is a humongous human being.

That's going to probably be a situation he needs to lose a little weight, I'm sure.

But at the same time, look, there are always so many years of experience.

Humans that big.

That's an extra five to eight rebounds of game you're going to get, because he's just too

big.

He wants to run into that.

And then they've got several other players that are good, like, by the way, Jason Lopez

is already on campus.

He's on the football team too, Colin Paul, small forward, top 108 recruit in the country,

Brandon Bass Jr., number 97 recruit in the country.

He got Lopez, who's a point guard, I can tell you, he'd be ranked higher in basketball

if it wasn't for the football thing, but he's really talented.

I've seen his film.

He's really good.

And then Marta Barnes is committed.

He's number 90 in the country.

If you keep recruiting like this, and you play like this, I bet in the next class, four

to states recruiting, we'll take another step up.

And to that end, I want to come back to this here in just a second after the break, but

I've got something else to talk about now on four to states, walked all symbols, because

this is what basketball should look like in the modern era.

Just add a little more spice underneath.

Again, you can't get out rebound of my 21, and you can be a totally different program.

So let's talk about that next right here.

I walked on symbols.

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All right, let's talk a little bit more about the recruiting class.

I'm honestly pretty impressed with it.

I looked at this a few times before.

I do need to go look at Ponder and make sure that I've got a pretty good feel for him.

I'm curious to see what his film is like because big guys, you got to watch him a little bit

more. But again, he's the big guy out of Virginia.

He plays at Gillian Basketball Academy, Gillian Basketball Academy.

I never heard of it.

Probably a small school if I was the guest.

But if you're that big, it doesn't matter how big the school is.

You're a guy that's going to stand out on the court in a classroom where you're out.

So getting that center is important.

Now, my question is, can Ford stay now that they're out?

I don't suspect they're going to play in the tournament.

I would imagine they're done.

They can focus on next season.

Can they get a true power forward at minimum?

How much money do they have to spend on who?

It's like Luke talked about.

They were dead last in the ACC coming into this year.

I imagine that's going to go up a little bit,

especially with the way they played.

And it should be pretty easy for him to fundraise.

It shouldn't be that hard.

Secondarily, what player wouldn't at least want to take the phone call?

Whether it's a transfer or a Juco or a high school kid.

Maybe they could run in somebody that had a good end to their high school season or something who knows.

But this ought to be a pretty easy sell.

From the majority of kids that I speak to and I cover football recruiting obviously.

That's the only thing I've ever really covered.

So today, kids want to play in an offense that's exciting.

That's up tempo in football.

What's no different in hoops?

Nobody wants to play in a 61 to 60 kind of game.

Like, you know, kids maybe grow up in Wisconsin, go to play with the badgers, whatever.

But most kids want to get up and down the court.

Four to state was just as athletic as Duke today.

They just weren't as big.

Getting some of these kids, again, like Ponder to mix in with what they show today.

They're going to start getting top 50 recruits.

It's not going to be a hard sell at all.

I'm curious to see what they get in the portal.

Comment down below what you think the most important position is other than say,

I'm a big guy underneath this, the obvious.

What do you think is going to be necessary because they've got some players on the roster.

And I don't know what that well that didn't play a ton.

They've got a few more guys moving on.

I suspect the roster will change quite a bit.

But with the freshmen coming in, if they can just get one or two really good portal guys,

why couldn't they finish at the top six in the ACC next year?

And I can actually be an NCAA tournament team that nobody wants to play.

You see the style here.

It's obvious.

You add just a little bit more of an elixir that's got some more juice in it.

Put it on top of what they already have.

I'm not saying you're going to have a guy like McCray, by the way, he is so much fun to watch.

Congrats to him on a great career for the state.

I think they can just be good at point.

Or again, you're not going to have McCray next year.

That's not likely with the way they play basketball.

Why couldn't they, I mean, is it out of the realm to see them?

We'd number four or five next year in the week.

I'm not going to pick them to win the week or beat Duke or something like that.

Why couldn't they be?

They get just a little more money.

And they get just a couple really good guys out of the portal with this class.

And Ponder is as good as he's supposed to be.

Comes in and helps him, gives him 10, 15 minutes.

A game minimum.

Yeah, I think they could be at possible top five team in the ACC.

Why not?

By the way, shout out to Wax.

He preached it before the season with this press conferences and stuff that I watched.

And I was curious, okay, is this guy just a talker or not?

He sat a grade.

But like he said, he's going to let him play free,

go to play hard, just play defense, et cetera, and we'll go at it.

They kind of ran out of juice at the end, especially in the defense event.

They're not deep enough.

But everything he said was true, especially about the offense just getting after it.

Get the best first shot that you see.

It reminds me of some of the old Dean Smith teams at North Carolina.

The best first shot is probably the best shot you're going to get before the other team's

defense truly gets set.

Before the state kind of lives and dies by that.

And they score a lot because of it.

And again, adding one more talent next year, there's no reason to think.

That they won't have a great opportunity.

And adding some of these kids, I think, is a big part of it.

So let me scroll down here again just so you can see a little bit more.

I need to watch the Marta Barnes kid a little bit.

He's a combo guard that's pretty athletic.

I'm guessing he's never 90 in the country.

He's got to be pretty good.

I wonder if he can really play point.

That would be big for a Florida state because if that's the case,

point guards are pretty expensive in the portals.

I'm sure most of you know.

It would be a good thing if Florida state could, you know,

get her top-notch point guard.

But that's a lot of your cash.

So we'll see what they do.

But thank you to everybody that stopped in.

And this impromptu walked on Seminole's live show.

They posted and kind of go with it from here.

I'll cover recruiting and stuff.

There's a reason to follow this.

I didn't know.

And I'm glad that I have a chance now.

But got a comment or two here in the chat.

I wanted to just say hello Garrett.

They gave him hell.

Love Coach Luke.

The future is bright.

Absolutely.

Like, why would you not like this team?

MBS, quick question.

What did Weekly Out to accomplish in his first year

that Norvelle has yet to accomplish?

Signed a top 10 class.

Yeah, that that shows you right.

This is a great point.

Effort.

And true belief in the program that you've represent.

Goes a long way, man.

It goes a long way.

People will see through

when you don't want to be somewhere.

There's a lot.

I'm not saying Norvelle doesn't want to be a Florida state.

But he's just not a good recruiter.

Laox gets after it.

He's a young guy.

He's a grad.

He knows how I have to.

His family's in trench now.

That's going to be pretty easy for him to sell the Florida state basketball program.

Hey, making it football related.

I love FSUB ball as well.

And Luke deserves the love.

Just wanted to point that out.

Oh, no, you're absolutely right, man.

No problem.

It's actually very true.

It's a barometer.

When you put in that effort, it matters.

That's on Norvelle that he didn't get that done in the past.

He's put it a lot more effort recently, but it's hard to get over the top

and that because people don't believe.

So he's paying the price for it.

All right.

Thank you folks very much.

I'm going to cut this one off here.

I'll post it in a little bit.

But everybody, once again,

we're going to do some basketball stuff from time to time now.

It's just fetching the off season.

Norvelle doesn't want to give access to the media and everything.

We'll cover basketball.

We'll cover some other stuff.

But thank you for checking out Walked On Simmons.

We will see you again soon.