The Florida State Seminoles enter 2012 with lofty expectations after winning the school's first-ever ACC title last season under coach Leonard Hamilton.
Although the Seminoles lost six players from that team, the school expects to contend for the title once again with the return of Michael Snaer and the emergence of a young core of players.
"We're going to surprise a lot of people," Hamilton said. "We like this team."
Last year the team finished with a 25-10 record and made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament before losing to Cincinnati. Florida State will rely heavily on Snaer, who is considered one of the best defenders in the conference.
"The strength of our teams has always been the quality of our depth and I think that's going to be something that's going to be consistent," Hamilton said. "We lost four starters, but we return our four leading scorers."
Snaer averaged 14 points per game last season and enters his senior year with the chance to become "the seventh player in school history to reach 1,600 points," according to the Associated Press.
The Seminoles will have to battle a trio of talented teams from North Carolina, all of who are ranked in the top 15 of the Associated Press rankings. North Carolina State are ranked sixth and are the favorites to win the ACC, while Duke and North Carolina are ranked eight and 11th respectively and should be extremely competitive.
Last season Florida State beat both Duke and North Carolina, "including a 33-point blowout of the Tar Heels last January," according to the Associated Press.
Some of the new weapons for the team include two international 7-footers in 7-3 Boris Bojanovsky from Slovakia and 7-1, 290-pound Michael Ojo from Nigeria, both of who are 19-years-old.
"We have a lot of talent in the locker room, guys are gym rats and willing to learn," Shannon said about the newcomers.
The Seminoles will look to start strong after struggling in the early parts of the 2011 season.
"We did get off to kind of a rocky start last year, but now our goal is to try to be a lot more ready earlier to go and play up to our ability," Hamilton said. "It is going to be somewhat of a challenge when you're trying to integrate as many first year players into our system."
Florida State has beaten South Alabama 10 out 12 meetings.
"Florida State is one of the top programs in the nation, year in and year out," Arrow, whose team finished 17-12 last season, told the school's official website. "Leonard (Hamilton) has been able to sustain that every year. For us to play them this early is good and it'll be interesting to see how far we are against this caliber of a team."
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