Florida State's best teams under Leonard Hamilton have been long and athletic, committed to defense and deep from players 1-10. The Seminoles have also valued familiarity with the scheme built up through years in Tallahassee.

The 2024-25 team features Jamir Watkins and includes three more returning players in Taylor Bol Bowen, Chandler Jackson and Waka Mbatch. But pulling together so many new pieces takes more than just an offseason and two exhibition games to get a clear picture of the Seminoles.

"I think we've shown signs that we're improving, a little bit of a view of what we could be," Hamilton said after FSU's second exhibition. "There are obviously some areas of our game that we all need to continue to work on. ... We had some moments where we flew around defensively, got some deflections. Got what we call kill stops.

"We still have a lot of growth to do. The challenge that we have is trying to develop the chemistry while playing a lot of people."

FSU was picked to finish 15th in the expanded 18-team ACC, ahead of No. 16 Cal, No. 17 Stanford and No. 18 Boston College. There's reason for cautious optimism that FSU could be better than 15th but the Seminoles are viewed as a .500 team in the preseason projections.

With FSU's season beginning on Monday against Northern Kentucky (7 p.m. on ACC Network Extra), here's a look at three storylines for the Seminoles in 2024-25.