Leonard Hamilton has said repeatedly this season that he likes his Florida State men's basketball team. He thinks it has serious potential and can develop into one of the best squads he's ever fielded.

But as he alluded to Monday during the weekly ACC coaches' teleconference, it's hard to do a lot of developing when you have two weeks off in the middle of a season.

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Hamilton's Seminoles (5-2, 1-1 in the ACC) are set to return to action on Wednesday evening when they host the N.C. State Wolfpack (6-3, 2-2) at the Tucker Center. It will be FSU's first game in two weeks after having three straight games postponed due to COVID-19 issues.

"We're a long ways away from being where I think we should be," Hamilton said. "And understandably so. We've missed a lot. And with us, the way we play and the number of people we have a part of our system, we needed those days. It affects a team like us more than a team that's playing just seven guys.

"In practice we very seldom, ever, ever have a starting lineup together. We never practice who starts together. We practice different lineups and different groups of guys every day. ... Because we have different mixtures. Everybody's got to blend in."

There wasn't a chance to do much blending last week.

After a Saturday game against Duke was postponed the night before, the Seminoles had nearly a week off from practice.

Hamilton said his team is at full availability now and has been practicing as a team "for the last three or four days. But that still means there was a week there -- smack dab in the middle of the ACC season -- where his team couldn't practice together at all.

"We had a lot of talk about that (as a staff), believe me," Hamilton said. "We did a lot of mental stuff. A lot of Zooms. ... We used it wisely. We had a couple of Zooms we thought were important with our guys.

"I thought we got some work done even though we weren't able to practice."

The last time the Seminoles played a game was in late December, when they fell to No. 12 Clemson in the final minutes on the road.

They've played just seven games this year. Wake Forest, with a 3-3 record overall, is the only ACC team that has played fewer games so far.

And now, after two weeks off and a game -- we assume -- that will be tipped off as scheduled on Wednesday, the Seminoles are finally in line to return to live game action.

They are set to play N.C. State on Wednesday night and then North Carolina on Saturday afternoon. There's no word yet on when those postponements from early January will be made up, but if the Seminoles are going to make another charge toward the NCAA Tournament, they'll have to find a way to continually improve while gaining much-needed experience.

"It's early for us right now," Hamilton said. "I just need a few more games under our belt before we can start realizing who we are. We missed those preseason games, missed those practices, some of those exhibition games that we missed. We're kind of still a team -- like most teams right now -- that's still growing and developing."

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