Seminoles predicted to finish ninth in ACC basketball
By Stephen Stone
Seminoles.com
Florida State women’s basketball team has been picked to finish ninth in the Blue Ribbon Panel ACC Predicted Order of Finish.
The prediction was announced last Wednesday night on the new show ACC PM on the ACC Network.
Freshman guard Ta’Niya Latson was one of six members chosen to the Blue Ribbon Panel Newcomer Watch List. The Miami native is ranked as the top-ranked shooting guard in the 2022 signing class and recently earned Florida Dairy Farmers Miss Basketball as well as Florida’s Gatorade Player of the Year in 2022.
The Blue Ribbon Panel pegged Louisville as the predicted league champion in 2022-23, while Virginia Tech senior center Elizabeth Kitley was named the preseason player of the year.
Latson joins Ashley Owusu of Virginia Tech, Saniya Rivers of NC State, Dyaisha Fair of Syracuse, Haley Cavinder of Miami and Clemson’s Ruby Whitehorn on the newcomer watch list. The list includes freshmen and first-year transfers, with Latson and Whitehorn being the only freshmen in the group.
Head coach Brooke Wyckoff begins her first season as the permanent head coach of Florida State. When she served as the interim head coach in the 2020-21 season, the Seminoles were predicted eighth in the league’s coaches poll and finished fourth, highlighting a remarkable achievement for Wyckoff.
The 2020-21 Seminoles are the only team in the league to be picked as low as eighth in the ACC preseason coaches poll and finish with a top-four seed since the conference expanded to its current group of teams in the 2014-15 academic year.
A mix of youthful talent and veteran leadership highlights the FSU roster in 2022-23. Transfers Jazmine Massengill (112 games) and Taylor O’Brien (102 games) have each played over 100 games in their collegiate careers. Incoming freshmen Latson and Brianna “Snoop” Turnage give the Seminoles skilled young players who can make immediate impacts.
Returning All-ACC freshmen O’Mariah Gordon and Makayla Timpson will be counted on for heavy production in their sophomore years, while returnees Sara Bejedi, Mariana Valenzuela, Erin Howard and Valencia Myers all played significant minutes a season ago and add to the team’s experience.
Florida State hosts two exhibitions to get itself going prior to the start of the 2022-23 season. FSU hosts West Georgia on Oct. 30 at 2 p.m. The Seminoles then host Flagler on Nov. 3, at 6 p.m. Both exhibitions are free to attend with general admission seating.
The Seminoles begin their official season at the Donald L. Tucker Center on Nov. 7 against Bethune-Cookman at a special start time of 11 a.m. FSU will host its education game, which provides a field trip to several schools across the Big Bend area.
