Florida State’s roster is almost entirely new, but one player already has the look of someone who could rise above all the turnover.
Kam Taylor arrives in Tallahassee with the kind of athleticism that jumps off the page, and Luke Loucks isn’t shy about how high he thinks that ceiling goes. With the Seminoles set to unveil a rebuilt group in their first exhibition game against Mississippi State, Taylor is the newcomer most likely to become the name fans remember first.
Florida State will face Mississippi State on Sat., Oct. 10, at 6 p.m. EST at the Pensacola Bay Center in Pensacola, Florida.
The Seminoles return just three players from the 2025-26 season, and with 12 newcomers on the roster, there’s still plenty to sort out before the 2026-27 season gets going. Loucks, though, believes this group is better than the one from a year ago.
The roster mix includes seven freshmen from a class ranked 23rd nationally and five transfers that made up the nation’s 45th-ranked portal class. But during an interview with Vince Wolfram, Loucks sounded especially energized when talking about UNC Asheville transfer Kameron Taylor.
Taylor, a shooting guard from Carmel Christian High School in Matthews, North Carolina, has only been playing basketball for six years, and that background is part of what makes him so intriguing. The junior guard’s upside is obvious, and Loucks clearly thinks Florida State is getting someone who is still very much on the rise.
“He might go down as the most athletic player in the history of Florida State,” Loucks said. “He’s only been playing basketball for five or six years…We feel like his best basketball is by far ahead of him”
Taylor committed to Florida State on April 15 after leading UNC Asheville in scoring last season at 18.9 points per game. He played in 32 games, averaged 5 rebounds and 3 assists, and shot 45.3 percent from the field.
There’s one clear area Florida State will want to sharpen: his three-point shooting. Taylor made just 28.1 percent of his attempts from deep last season, and that’s a number the Seminoles will be working to lift.
His résumé already shows steady growth. As a freshman in 2024-25, Taylor appeared in 31 games, started two, and averaged 8.9 points per game while earning a spot on the All-Big South Freshman Team. Then last season, he took another leap, averaging 18.9 points per game, leading the conference, and landing First-Team All-Big South honors.
That scoring punch matters because Florida State’s schedule is loaded with heavyweight opponents, including Florida, Duke, Louisville, Houston, Tennessee, Miami, and Virginia. Loucks will need Taylor to do more than finish plays; he’ll need him to create them too.
“What really separates him is his ability to create; he can make plays for himself and for others, “ Loucks said. “His combination of elite athleticism and playmaking gives him a chance to impact the game in a big way."
With so many new faces in the mix, Taylor has a real chance to become the player everyone associates with this team - the one fans want to watch and opponents have to account for every possession. Whether his game translates the same way in the ACC will go a long way toward deciding how quickly Florida State’s uncertainty disappears.
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