Florida State’s new head basketball coach Luke Loucks introduces himself, shares his beliefs and coaching style during a press conference Monday, March 10, 2025. Alicia Devine/Tallahassee Democrat / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Florida State learns ACC opponents for 2025–26 season

Originally posted on Florida State Seminoles on SI
By Austin Veazey | Last updated May 28, 2025 8:51 PM ET

The ACC has moved back to an 18-game men's basketball conference schedule due to concerns that they were cannibalizing themselves, keeping ACC teams out of the NCAA Tournament. In the four seasons where they had a 20-game schedule and an NCAA Tournament (COVID-19 season excluded), the ACC has only averaged 4.75 teams in the NCAA Tournament per year. That's well below the 7.3 bids they were getting in the six seasons before switching schedule formats.

Because of the schedule change, the ACC had to reformat opponents. They announced those changes on Wednesday afternoon, which will be a weird setup. With 18 teams, you'd expect one team to play the 17 others with one opponent faced twice. But the ACC announced it'll be two opponents faced twice, meaning there will be one ACC team that FSU won't play.

The ACC has announced Miami as Florida State's permanent rival and SMU as the "variable partner," so those are the two teams that FSU will play both at home and on the road. Last season, FSU's permanent rivals were Miami, Clemson, and the variable Louisville (would've switched this year had they stayed at 20 games).

FSU will host Miami, SMU, Boston College, California, Duke, NC State, Stanford, Virginia, and Wake Forest. FSU will travel to Miami, SMU, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Pitt, Syracuse, and Virginia Tech. Unfortunately, they will not play North Carolina at all unless it comes in the ACC Tournament.

It's a pretty good home slate for the Seminoles in Luke Loucks' first season. Miami, Duke, NC State, and Virginia all project to be pretty solid.

The non-conference schedule is still coming together, especially as they have to add two more non-conference games now. Coach Loucks mentioned he wants a tough non-conference schedule, saying he wanted to play teams like Kentucky and Auburn, but those seem uncertain.