LWOS continues its preseason top 25 countdown with the Florida State Seminoles. Leonard Hamilton’s team comes into the 2021-2022 season looking completely different than when we last saw them in March. Four of the top six minutes-getters from last season’s team are now in the pros. The program has been so great over the past five seasons. Their recruiting class is very talented and is ranked number eight in the country and they’re adding multiple impact transfers.
Hamilton’s teams are known for their height. That is something they somewhat lack coming into this season. The reason I say “somewhat lack” is because even though they have a whopping four seven footers on the roster, none of them have a ton of experience and two of them are in their first year in Tallahassee. Of the other two, while they did play in plenty of games last season, they still didn’t play significant minutes. So it is mostly the experience, or relative lack thereof, that concerns me a bit. That will be something to pay attention to as the season progresses.
The Florida State Seminoles
I would probably have the Florida State Seminoles much higher in my preseason top 25 (I initially did) if there wasn’t just so much turnover. They lost three guys – M.J. Walker, Scottie Barnes, Raiquan Gray – to the NBA. Barnes, of course, was the fourth overall pick the the draft. Balsa Koprivica got drafted too. However, he ended up signing a deal to play back home in Belgrade, Serbia.
That is a ton of talent to replace. But they still have plenty. Anthony Polite could be an NBA prospect. He is the team’s best shooter and one of the best in the ACC. He shot 43.6% from three and 56.9% from two last season. RayQuan Evans, a starter in eighteen of twenty-four games last year, is also back. Seniors Malik Osborne and Wyatt Wilkes have both been in Tallahassee for many years and know Leonard Hamilton’s system. Osborne even played over twenty minutes per game last season.
Perhaps the biggest part though is the newcomers. Leonard Hamilton brings in yet another strong recruiting class as well as multiple impact transfers. He brings in three ESPN Top 100 recruits, all of which are in the top sixty-one overall. I think that all three of them have a chance to start this season, at least at some point. Matthew Cleveland is the best of the bunch. The five-star small forward from Atlanta is a highly touted prospect that is ranked highly no matter where you look (#30 on ESPN, #24 on 247, & #17 on Rivals). He should be starting from day one. Combo guard Jalen Warley and center John Butler, both four-stars, could also push for spots in the starting lineup from day one. Naheem McLeod is a JUCO prospect, rated as the sixth best in this year’s class. At 7’3″ he’ll fight right in in Tallahassee.
Now for the transfers. Houston transfer Caleb Mills is going to score and score a lot. As a freshman at Houston in 2019-2020, Mills averaged 13.2 points per game mostly off the bench. He was the first freshman to lead the Cougars in scoring in forty years. If he can return to that form after only playing in four games last year due to an ankle injury. Mills was last year’s AAC preseason Player Of The Year, and could be an all-conference caliber player in the ACC if he can play like he did at Houston.
Cam’Ron Fletcher is the other transfer, and an intriguing one at that. The SF was a four-star recruit and the #71 overall prospect in the 2020 class before committing to Kentucky. He had a strong debut for the Wildcats against Morehead State, scoring nine points and grabbing five rebounds. But it all went very downhill from there. His playing time greatly diminished after that game and he ended up only playing in nine games and making just one start.
Fletcher was suspended in December of last year. That happened due to an outburst with Kentucky head coach John Calipari that occurred on the sideline in their game against UNC. The incident was about his lack of playing time . He was quick to apologize for it. Fletcher could very well end up being one of the Noles’ best players. He’ll need to accept a role in Tallahassee and show why he was rated so highly coming out of high school in order to do that.
As you’ll see below, my projected starting lineup for Florida State might look a little different than the ones that other people may have. I think that Mills, Polite, Cleveland, and Osborne will definitely be starts. For me, I think the question is whether or not Leonard Hamilton, who loves his big men, wants to start a smaller lineup. That will determine whether Jalen Warley or John Butler is the fifth starter. For now I’ll go with Butler, but it may very well be Warley to begin the season. I think both will get an opportunity to start at least at some point this season, but who starts on November 10th in the season opener against Penn will be interesting to see.
Projected Lineup
PG – Caleb Mills (9.8 PPG/2.6 RPG/1.1 APG @ Houston)
SG – Anthony Polite (10.1 PPG/ 4.5 RPG/4.1 APG/ 1.5 SPG)
SF – Matthew Cleveland (#30 overall recruit in ESPN 100)
PF – Malik Osborne (5.9 PPG/4.5 RPG)
C – John Butler (#60 overall recruit in ESPN 100)
Main Photo
