After another stellar week, FSU Basketball soars to No. 16 in polls

It was an honest question. One that broadcasters and Florida State fans alike were asking throughout the last week:

How in the world are Leonard Hamilton's Seminoles not ranked?

Well, they don't have to ask it anymore.

After a week in which they went 2-0 with blowout wins against ranked opponents Louisville and Clemson, Florida State is now ranked No. 16 in the latest AP poll, which was released Monday morning.

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The Seminoles are now 9-2 overall and 5-1 in the ACC. They are on a four-game win streak heading into Wednesday's showdown with Miami at the Tucker Center (6 p.m. ET, ACC Network).

The Seminoles made the highest jump of anyone in this week's AP Top 25.

They were essentially ranked 29th in the country a week ago, receiving the fourth most votes of teams outside the Top 25. Now they're 16th. The only other team who made a similar jump was Alabama, which went from No. 18 to No. 9.

Shortly before the AP poll came out on Monday, Hamilton was asked during the weekly ACC Coaches' Teleconference about his team not being ranked last week.

"Our team is not always loaded with players who are predicted to be certain things, so people know very little about us," Hamilton said. "Actually, in most of the years we've had success and gone to the NCAA Tournament and the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight and wherever we've been, we haven't been ranked in the preseason, and it hasn't bothered us at all.

"What I do is take [the mindset of] it's not how you start, it's how you finish. Sometimes, it's even motivating to have the kids not ranked because you have something to shoot for. We feel confident when you go back and look at the last five or six years, at the end of the season, we have proven that we have earned our rightful place. But because of tradition, we always fall back to the place people have in their minds that has a lot to do with tradition and what has happened in the past. But we can't do anything about the 80 years of tradition that we don't have ... so we're just clawing and scratching, trying to earn our rightful place."

Florida State is also ranked No. 16 in the latest USA Today coaches' poll, climbing up nine spots from No. 25 the week before. That, too, was the highest jump of any team in the country.

The Seminoles are currently ranked No. 21 in the NCAA's NET ranking, No. 15 in Ken Pomeroy's rankings and No. 10 in the latest RPI rankings as well.

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