Luke Loucks makes plea to Florida State fans following loss to Miami

As an alumnus, Luke Loucks knows Florida State can be both a football school and a basketball school, and that’s what the first-year Seminoles head men’s basketball coach is trying to create in Tallahassee. But after four consecutive seasons of missing the NCAA Tournament, and facing a fifth if things don’t turn around quickly, Loucks knows such a turnaround takes time.

Which is why, following Tuesday night’s 83-73 loss to ACC rival Miami, Loucks delivered a message of perseverance to FSU fans. Despite the defeat, which snapped a three-game win streak, the 35-year-old former Seminoles guard praised the season-high 10,000-plus in attendance Tuesday and asked them to continue to show up, even if the on-court results still leave a lot to be desired.

“I think that was the biggest crowd of the season, and had we won, I think that’d continue. Now, what I’m asking is obviously (for) our fans and particularly our students to help build this program with us, and have some equity in what we’re doing,” Loucks said postgame, via Warchant.com “To me, Florida State can be a really, really good football school, which we’ve seen, and it can be a really, really good basketball school at the same time. I’ve lived it first-hand, to an extent, where when you win, the fans come, and when you win some more, they keep coming.

“Now we’ve got to do our job to sustain winning over the next few years,” Loucks added. “And all I ask is for the students to do their job and have a great time every basketball game. Because it certainly helps us play against big-time opponents when most of the seats are filled.”

Tuesday night’s game against the rival Hurricanes — which are also coached by a young, first-year head coach in Jai Lucas — brought out a season-high 10,317 fans, which was more than twice the turnout for last week’s mid-week home game vs. Boston College and nearly 3,200 more than the previous season-high against Houston (7,121) on Dec. 6. But while Tuesday night’s turnout was an outlier, Loucks was encouraged by the show of support and is hopeful the FSU fanbase — particularly the student section — can continue to show out and help the Seminoles continue their on-court rebuild in Tallahassee.

“First of all, I want to thank all the fans that came out. I don’t know the official number, but I heard over 10,000 fans were here, the student section sold out very quickly. This is what we’re trying to build here, where that’s consistent every night, where every game is a sellout. And that takes time,” Loucks said. “This town — especially the school and those that support Florida State athletics — respects winning. (And) to me, winning is the ultimate band-aid – it doesn’t fix everything, and it certainly won’t fix a lot of our problems; those will take time and proper communication and partnership, which I think we’re building. But when you win, it covers up a lot of issues we’re trying to solve daily, one of those being attendance.