Florida State Basketball: 3 takeaways from season-opener against North Florida

1. Solid debut for Scottie Barnes

There have been a number of highly-talented freshmen who have put up great performances early on this season. The Seminoles aren’t necessarily looking for the same thing from their five-star prospect Scottie Barnes, who is a unique player in college basketball.

At 6’9, Barnes has the body and size of a forward but is naturally a perimeter player with how he handles the ball. The “point forward” can do it all and is projected to be the team’s lead ball-handler. He looked that way in his debut, leading the Seminoles with six assists, along with scoring eight points and bringing down five rebounds.

Barnes went just 4/11 from the field but the fact that he took the most shot attempts signals the kind of usage the freshman will have for Florida State. He already had a positive impact on MJ Walker, who had 17 points and looked very comfortable playing off the ball. There was some worry that he would’ve had to play more on the ball himself but if Barnes is up to it, Walker will benefit from being a natural shooting guard.

The all-around talents for Barnes make him a genuine triple-double threat throughout the season. But it’ll be hard to rack up 10+ assists with the Seminoles unless the guards can effectively catch and shoot the ball. He may not be as natural a distributor as Trent Forrest but Barnes will have his fingerprints on a lot of the success for Florida State this season.