Luke Loucks adds two more members with Florida State connections to basketball staff

Loucks is close to finalizing his first new staff at Florida State.

Austin Veazey | Apr 17, 2025

Florida State University’s new men’s basketball coach Luke Loucks stands with FSU Athletic Director Michael Alford before a press conference Monday, March 10, 2025. / Alicia Devine/Tallahassee Democrat / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Florida State Seminoles

Luke Loucks is getting closer to finalizing his first staff as the head coach at Florida State. He's made it a point to bring in people with FSU and NBA connections to build the best staff possible, and Loucks has now added two more with connections to Tallahassee.

Florida State is bringing on Justin Lindner as the Assistant Director of Player Development and Perin Foote as the Director of Basketball Operations, which was first reported by Jeff Goodman of the Field of 68 Network.

More Florida State staff moves, Luke Loucks is also bringing in Justin Lindner at Assistant Director of Player Development and Perin Foote as Director of Ops#Noles
— Austin Veazey (@EasyVeazeyNG) April 17, 2025

Lindner was a walk-on at Florida State from 2016 to 2022, an integral part of the scout teams that helped make those teams so successful, which included four NCAA Tournament appearances (would've been five if not for COVID-19) and an ACC Championship in 2020. Since graduating from Florida State, Lindner has been an assistant coach at Southern California Academy and, most recently, at Mercyhurst University. He also spent time with USA Basketball in 2023. He had coaching aspirations since he first walked on with the Seminoles and gets a great chance to do so here.

Florida State Seminoles guard Justin Lindner (12) brings the ball down the court. The Florida State Seminoles beat the Miami Hurricanes 99-81 on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2020. Fsu V Miami783 / Alicia Devine/Tallahassee Democrat, Tallahassee Democrat via Imagn Content Services, LLC

Foote was an undergraduate manager at Florida State with me from 2016 to 2020, then followed Dennis Gates to become a graduate assistant at Cleveland State and a Player Development Coordinator at Missouri. He spent this season as an assistant coach at VMI, which has former Florida State guard Andrew Wilson as its head coach. Foote now returns to the Sunshine State where he's from.

Coach Loucks is also expected to bring in Ben O'Donnell as the team's strength coach, who played at FSU for the 2007-08 season. He's been a strength coach at UCF and Kansas State, but this move isn't officially official yet. The only other move expected to happen at some point is to bring in a General Manager.