Significant basketball progress came at Florida State under Leonard Hamilton’s long tenure with the school, including three Sweet Sixteen’s and an Elite Eight run in the last eight seasons. After some flat results in recent years, Hamilton announced his retirement and thrust the Seminoles into their first coaching search in nearly a quarter century.
Fittingly enough, Florida State landed on a former player for their next leader, naming Luke Loucks to that position three months ago. Loucks is a native Floridian who played in the Seminoles backcourt from 2008 to 2012, including decent production on an ACC championship team as a senior. Undrafted, he played overseas for a few seasons before beginning his coaching career at the NBA level.
The initial concern with Loucks’ hiring is that he doesn’t have any collegiate experience. His coaching career started with a stint with the Golden State Warriors where he won a pair of NBA championship rings. He had spent the last three years with the Sacramento Kings and served as a defensive specialist, but now he turns his attention to resurrection for his alma mater.
Florida State is coming off a 17-15 season while tying for 9th place in a down year in the ACC. There’s work in revitalizing a roster that’s losing leading scorer Jamir Watkins to the NBA Draft and seeing a bunch of other changes. Former starters Taylor Bol Bowen and Malique Ewin are off to new homes leaving Loucks and his staff with plenty of offseason work already.
The transfer class doesn’t jump off the page, but the Seminoles add some important pieces. Among the most notable are former Drexel guard Kobe MaGee as well as Martin Somerville, a point guard from UMass Lowell. Former ACC reserve Robert McCray V further bolsters a rebuilt backcourt while this team will lean heavily on new frontcourt pieces like Lajae Jones and Chauncey Wiggins.
Very few minutes return from last year’s squad but this reboot isn’t necessarily a bad thing after the program has stalled in recent years. The concern doesn’t come from that, but instead from Loucks’ inexperience. He could bring impressive talent down to Tallahassee and does have that NBA pedigree but can he sell that, especially when the program had somewhat limited NIL resources available in his first offseason.
The bottom line is that program rebuilds can be done faster than ever using the transfer portal and it’s hard to see that here with Florida State. There’s no question that this team got a few solid pieces but we’re left wondering if they could’ve gotten more with more investment. We’re months or years away from asking if Loucks was the right hire and he’s doing what he can so far, but this current roster isn’t exactly on the same level as a Duke or North Carolina.