NC State Wraps Up The Regular Season With Florida State

Florida State comes to Raleigh on Sunday without Chris Singleton, who broke his foot on February 12th and underwent surgery shortly thereafter.

The Seminoles are 2-2 since then, and while they had trouble at the defensive end in both losses, the overall numbers remained solid. Even without Singleton, Florida State's defense had no trouble forcing turnovers and limited those four teams to 44% shooting inside the arc. The latter number isn't quite up to their usual standard, but it's still very good.

Between Bernard James (his block percentage ranks 8th nationally), Jon Kreft, and Xavier Gibson, the Seminoles still have plenty of height to work with. They miss Singleton's defensive versatility--he blocked shots, led the team in steal percentage and was third in defensive rebounding percentage--but his absence is no disaster for Florida State.

NC State has to find a way to build on its offensive performance in the second half of the first meeting, since that's just about the only positive from that game. Fortunately for the Wolfpack, Florida State isn't the same team on the road, as this home/road splits chart from Luke Winn illustrates (see #4).

The offense really falls off a cliff away from Tallahassee. Of course, any continuation of this trend depends on how much the Pack cares about finishing off a lost season with a win. NC State's defensive efforts have been consistently poor since mid-February, and they've already proven they're more than capable of making Florida State's offense look good.

If they'd like to maybe play hard and try to win this game for the seniors and Sidney Lowe, they'll have a good shot at it. Pomeroy likes FSU by one point.