Syracuse fans stormed the court on Saturday afternoon following an 82-72 victory over No. 6 Florida State. It was the first time an opposing fan base stormed the court after beating FSU since Miami did so in Coral Gables during the 2011-12 season.
That year is considered by most to be the best for FSU under head coach Leonard Hamilton. That season, the Seminoles overcame a slow start to win their only ACC championship. Sitting currently at 18-4 and ranked sixth in the country, there is some speculation that this team could be as good.
“This team can be as good as any team in the country,” former FSU guard Deividas Dulkys said. “The sky is the limit for them. They just need to stick together when times are tough. If they can stay cohesive as a team, (they)’ll be able to get through (the) tough schedule and make a serious run, if not win, the (NCAA) tournament.”
Dulkys was a senior on the 2011-12 team. Regarded as a sharpshooter and stellar on-the-ball defender for FSU, Dulkys sees some similarities between the teams.
“This team has gotten a lot better defensively since the beginning of the season so I now see similarities with our defenses,” he said. “I think we were still stronger defensively and we had a much older team.”
The 2011-12 squad had six seniors including Bernard James, who was 27 years old by season’s end and Jon Kreft, who was 25. The current club has six first-year players and only three scholarship players who have been at FSU for more than three years.
“We had grown men on our team, so we were more mature and experienced,” Dulkys said. “This team is extremely deep and they have a ton of scoring options. On any given night they can have any guy on the team come out and take over; that reminds me a lot of our team.”
Despite dropping back-to-back contests to Georgia Tech and Syracuse, Florida State already has six wins over ranked teams, which equals the most under Hamilton with the 2011-12 squad. Though FSU will likely fall out of the top 10 after consecutive losses, the No. 6 national ranking is the highest in 24 years.
“This team definitely has the potential to be better than we were, BUT we’ll have to see how the rest of the season goes,” Dulkys said. “We don’t need to guess who would win, it’s not a hypothetical question (although) a bunch of the alumni came back and played against these guys this summer and they couldn’t win a game against us.”
Mike Ferguson is the editor of The Daily Nole. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeWFerguson
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