TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Seminoles.com) — No. 16 Florida State Women’s Basketball prepares for normalcy at the Donald L. Tucker Center once again as it hosts North Florida on Tuesday, Nov. 9, at 7 p.m. in a game that will be live streamed on ACC Network Extra.
Single-game tickets for Tuesday’s season opener are as low as $4 and can be purchased on Seminoles.com or by calling 1-888-FSU-NOLE. Season tickets also continue to be offered at an affordable rate for a Seminole team that has lengthy NCAA post-season aspirations.
Tuesday marks the official return to the Tucker Center sidelines for head coach Sue Semrau, who enters her 24th season of coaching with the Seminoles. Coach Sue owns four ACC Coach of the Year honors, ranking third all-time behind only Debbie Ryan of Virginia (7) and Gail Goestenkors (7) of Duke. However, Coach Sue is the ACC’s active leader for the award.
“You don’t ever see college basketball played in a racquetball court,” Semrau said. “Last year was an anomaly, to have gyms where they didn’t have anybody. I can’t imagine what that would have been like as a player, to play in that environment. The fans, the crowd, the excitement is what makes college basketball so fun.”
The Seminoles had plenty of prominent performances in their 91-47 exhibition victory over West Florida last Wednesday. Senior forward Valencia Myers was hard to stop with 19 points and seven rebounds in just under 22 minutes of action. Freshman forward Makayla Timpson (Edison, Ga.) also turned heads by finishing with 17 points, six rebounds and going 7-of-7 from the floor in just over 19 minutes.
Florida State’s No. 16 pre-season ranking by the Associated Press marks the 10th time since 2007 that the program has earned a Top 25 rank prior to the season. The Seminoles’ current senior class has experienced a heavy pre-season rating before, as FSU was pegged 12th in 2019-20 when the group was sophomores. FSU’s highest pre-season ranking ever was in 2015 when it was selected seventh.
FSU was selected fifth in the ACC predicted order of finish by both the league’s head coaches as well as the Blue Ribbon Panel. Led by Interim Head Coach Brooke Wyckoff in last year’s 2020-21 season, FSU became the first team to be picked as low as eighth by the league’s head coaches and finish in the top four of the conference. Since the 2012-13 season, when both the ACC coaches and B/R Panel selections were implemented, FSU has finished above its expectation in six of those seasons.
The Seminoles continue to run the state of Florida, owning a 44-6 record vs. Florida-based schools in the last 50 games played. FSU is 10-0 all-time against UNF, last playing the Ospreys on Dec. 18, 2019, in a 70-41 win at home.
Florida State has won 26 of its last 27 season openers, and owns a 39-10 all-time mark in season-opening games. Last year, FSU had to wait until Dec. 1 for its first game and defeated rival Florida at home, 81-75.
In Florida State’s last meeting with UNF, then-freshman center River Baldwin had a big performance with 19 points (8-of-10) and eight rebounds in 20 minutes of action in a 70-41 win for the Seminoles.
UNF is coming off a 14-11 season in 2020-21, including a third-place finish in the Atlantic Sun with an 11-5 conference record. The Ospreys return four starters, highlighted by redshirt senior guard Jazz Bond who averaged 17.8 points last season.
FSU’s first four games in non-conference play are all at home and include Milwaukee (Nov. 14 at 2 p.m.), Jacksonville (Nov. 18 at 7 p.m.) and Grambling State (Nov. 21 at 2 p.m.).
