Link Jarrett reacts to Florida State falling out of top eight seed spot

When the NCAA Tournament bracket was revealed, Florida State was elated to learn it was a national seed. It was probably a little disappointed to see it was the No. 9 overall seed, though.

The top eight seeds are guaranteed to host a Super Regional in the event they advance past the Regional round of play. That’s a significant advantage on the path to Omaha.

Florida State coach Link Jarrett opened up on the seeding, noting his team could have done a little more here or there to secure a better spot. That’s just the nature of the beast.

“This is a talented team, and I think everybody recognizes that,” Jarrett said. “We had some challenging moments throughout the season and you look at … this is why I talk about each game individually, one game at a time. Because you look back at a couple of these games, it’s probably the difference in being eight or nine. Or seven or nine. Or six or nine.”

Perhaps worse for Florida State than simply being the No. 9 overall seed is who the ‘Noles are paired with. The No. 8 seed is Oregon State.

That means if both nationally seeded teams win, the Seminoles will have to travel all the way out west for the Super Regionals. No easy task, to be sure.

And there were some mitigating circumstances with the tragic shooting at Florida State earlier this spring that influenced the strength of schedule for the Seminoles. That’s an unfortunate reality.

“I wish we could have been a little bit more consistent,” Jarrett said. “But overall you’re still happy with the result. Virginia, not being able to play that series, and that was a terrible weekend for everybody. It took games from Virginia, and it should have, I mean that’s just part of what we had to deal with to get through that tragedy. There are games along the way that we let get by us that we needed to finish off and win, and we didn’t.”

All told, Jarrett didn’t seem overly displeased with the Florida State seeding. If he had significant disappointment, he mostly kept it internal.

“I think there’s some ownership in that,” he said. “And we’ll have to be responsible for it and try to learn from some of those things even looking back at the end of the game Saturday.”