The waiting game begins for Florida State women's basketball (23-10, 12-6) following its semifinal loss to NC State in ACC Tournament semifinals on Saturday.

The Seminoles have a week off before the NCAA Tournament bracket is announced on Sunday at 3 p.m. on ESPN. They're looking for their third straight tournament appearance and first win since 2019.

After thrashing Wake Forest and upsetting Syracuse in the ACC Tournament, where do the Seminoles stand as March Madness creeps closer and closer?

NCAA Tournament seeding

In ESPN Charlie Creme's latest Bracketology, which was published early Monday morning, FSU did not move from that No. 8 seed but is now in the Iowa City regional facing No. 9 Alabama.

It was previously in the Columbia regional facing Princeton.

In the latest NET rankings, FSU went up one spot to No. 43. Now that the ACC tournament is over, can the Seminoles move up for a higher seeding in the NCAA Tournament?

Four teams are in front of FSU in the NET rankings that have not started their conference tournaments yet and four are still alive in the Big 12 Tournament.

Those teams are UNLV (Mountain West), Middle Tennessee (Conference USA), Princeton (Ivy League), Gonzaga (WCC), Iowa State (Big 12), Texas (Big 12), Kansas State (Big 12) and Oklahoma (Big 12).

It's likely UNLV, Middle Tennesse, Princeton and Gonzaga won't move much as conference tournament top-seeds and auto bids, but an upset for any of these teams could really open up the field.

Out of the four, Princeton has the biggest chance for an upset as it'll likely face Columbia, a first-four-out team, in the Ivy League Conference championship.

The Lions defeated the Tigers earlier this season and was Princeton's only conference loss.

Oklahoma and Texas are predicted top 4 seeds and Kansas State is a No. 5, quite ahead of where FSU is, but Iowa State is a No. 9. If the Cyclones win their game against Oklahoma on Monday, they could possibly leapfrog the Seminoles.

FSU will likely not move from its No. 8/9 position, but as we've seen in the past, anything can happen in March.

ACC Tournament performance

The Seminoles had than expected performance in Greensboro this past weekend.

It won its second-round game against Wake Forest by 17 points, 70-53, and pulled off an upset of No. 3 Syracuse, 78-65, in the quarterfinal round.

However, it was overwhelmed by No. 2 NC State in semifinals, falling 69-43.

Guard Ta'Niya Latson and Forward Makayla Timpson were the big stars of FSU's ACC Tournament run, earning All-Tournament team honors.

Latson averaged 20 points over three games, peaking in the win over Syracuse with 25 points and winning the scoring battle over the Orange's Dyaisha Fair (23 points).

She also shot an impressive 12-of-14 from the free-throw line over three games.

Timpson recorded her 16th and 17th double-doubles of the season in wins over Wake Forest (22 points and 13 rebounds) and Syracuse (10 points and 18 rebounds).

O'Mariah Gordon also had a notable performance in the Syracuse game, hitting a career-high 24 points off 56% (9-of-16) from the field. The game against the Orange was debatably the best game FSU has played all season.

However, the Seminoles ran into issues with fouling and depth against NC State.

Timpson committed three fouls before halftime, limiting her minutes for the rest of the game. Here defensive absence was felt as the Wolfpack shot for 44% (30-of-68) from the field and out-rebounded the Seminoles, 58-to-32, nearly doubling up FSU.

The Seminoles managed to contain NC State's 6-foot-5 inch center River Baldwin to seven points but struggled to stop Aziaha James (23 points) and Mimi Collins (17 points).

Collins played a huge role early on as she had 11 of the Wolfpack's 20 points by halftime.

Latson scored 16, but FSU offense struggled all night, shooting for a low 25% (17-of-68) from the field. Gordon shot for 21% (3-of-14) and Sara Bejedi shot for 25% (3-of-12).

Bejedi's shooting woes were constant throughout the ACC Tournament, shooting for 20% against Wake Forest (3-of-15) and 18% (3-of-16) against Syracuse.

Biggest question heading into NCAA Tournament

Depth against top four seeds is the biggest question for FSU going into the NCAA Tournament.

The Seminoles have flexed their scoring depth against ranked teams this season, picking up wins over Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia Tech and Syracuse.

However, when it has come to the teams that will likely be top-four seeds in the NCAA Tournament, FSU has struggled.

The Seminoles are 1-5 against Creme's 16 host teams this season. The Seminoles defeated Virginia Tech at home on Jan. 14, who is currently a No. 4 seed in the Albany Regional.

They've lost to NC State (twice), Notre Dame, UCLA and Stanford.

Except for the Stanford game, four of those losses saw the Seminoles' opponent get scoring help from either off the bench or from the entire starting lineup.

The Bruins and Wolfpack had at least five players break into double-scoring figures. Notre Dame saw four of its five starters score at least 18.

The Stanford game was the deepest we've seen FSU this season as all five starters scored 10 points or more.

A big part of that was credited to Alexis Tucker, who at that time was averaging 11 points a game. Following the Stanford game she's only averaged 3.8 points a game.

When Latson, Timpson, Gordon and Bejedi all get going FSU wins big, as seen in the Wake Forest and Syracuse games recently, and has proven to compete, as seen against Stanford and Virginia Tech.

However, when it's only one or two of them going, the Seminoles struggle immensely. That was seen in a 42-point loss to Duke and the semifinal loss to NC State.

If the Seminoles want to make a run deep into March, especially considering that they'll likely run into a No. 1 seed in the second round, four of its five starters need to be on every game and the bench needs to start contributing.

FSU needs players like Tucker, Amya Bonner, Brianna Turnage and Carla Viegas need to start scoring the ball.

Turnage and Tucker have been huge on the rebounding side of the game, but they need to start scoring if FSU wants to keep playing this month.

Jack Williams covers Florida State athletics for Tallahassee Democrat. Contact him via email at jwilliams@tallahassee.com or on X @jackgwilliams. 

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Here's FSU women's basketball's status ahead of NCAA Tournament