On January 9th ESPN Women's Basketball released M.A. Voepel's Power Rankings for the week. N. C. State due to the B. C. loss (B.C. got the win of the week for this) even with the win over UVA dropped from 9th to 14th. Voepel wrote this about State:

14. NC State Wolfpack (13-3)
Previous ranking: 9
This week: at Florida State Seminoles (Thursday), at North Carolina (Sunday)

Guard Diamond Johnson back on the floor was a welcome sight for Wolfpack fans. Her return from injury wasn't enough in Thursday's loss to Boston College, but she was one of five NC State players to score in double figures in Sunday's victory over Virginia. The ACC is so tough the Wolfpack might be challenged to stay in the Power Rankings.

The two teams above State are Duke at 9 and Notre Dame at 7. VaTech, UNC and Louisville have all dropped out of the rankings.

State plays at FSU on Thursday January 12th at 6 p.m. The game will be telecast on the ACC Network.

State's record against FSU is 34-16. State's longest win streak is 12 games while FSU's longest win streak is 5 games. State has won the last 5 games winning last year's ACC Tournament game against FSU 84-54. Might not be that easy this time.

From warrennolan, State's overall record is 13-3, the team's conference record is 3-2, the teams Live RPI is 7, the team's NET is 11, the team's ELO is 10, and the team's SOS is 4. State's NET quadrant 1 record is 3-2 and the team's RPI quadrant 1 record is 5-2. Just woke up to Nolan offering quadrant one wins in both NET and RPI. I have been giving the NET quad wins. State's best win was the 94-81 win at NET 14 Iowa.

Again from warrennolan, FSU's overall record is 15-3, their conference record is 4-1, their NET is 17, their Live RPI is 25, their ELO is 33 and their SOS is 33. FSU's NET quadrant 1 record is 3-2 and FSU's RPI quadrant 1 record is 4-2. FSU's best win was that 78-71 win at NET 24 UNC. Both State and FSU have lost to both UConn and B.C. Fudd did not play for UConn in their win over FSU.

Nolan picks State to win 74-72 with a 58% win probability. Lobo's Look at Her Hoop Stats picks State to win 76.3 to 69.7 with a 69.9% win probability. Taking a look at Her Hoop Stats ratings, FSU has a value of 27.5 and a rank of 27/361. State's ratings have a value of 40.7 and a rank of 6/361. The site's simple RPI for FSU is 26/361 while for State it is 5/361. There is no doubt that if the NCAA went by RPI and without favoritism, State would be a solid number 2 seed and close to a number 1 seed at this time.

With regard to conference stats found at theacc.com, FSU has the highest scoring average per game at 87.3 ppg while State is 4th at 77.3 ppg. For defense State is 7th allowing 59.7 ppg while FSU is last allowing 67.4 ppg. FSU's Ta'Niya Latson leads the conference in scoring at 24.7 ppg. FSU's field goal percentage is 427 while State's is 432. State shoots 302 from the arc while FSU shoots 405.

FSU started against B.C. six-two sophomore Makayla Timpson, six-one redshirt senior Erin Howard, five-eight freshman three-time ACC player of the week Latson, six-foot Kentucky transfer graduate student Jazmine Massengill and five-seven senior Sara Bejedi. Six-two sophomore Mariana Valenzuela got 20 plus minutes off the bench.

What is surprising is that FSU is so good keeping in mind the exodus of players after last season and the retirement of longtime coach Sue Semrau. I look for River Baldwin to have an impact in this game being a transfer from FSU. I also look forward to Madison Hayes and Saniya Rivers guarding Latson. Still calling this game as a toss-up.

Go State!