Greensboro Reporter

There appears to be general agreement among the sports prognosticators that the best recruiting class in men’s basketball in the ACC belongs to the Florida State Seminoles. The websites 24/7 Sports and Rivals both rank Florida State No. 1.

The two websites differ, however, on the conference rankings below the Seminoles. 24/7 Sports puts Louisville second, followed by Miami, Georgia Tech and North Carolina State.

Rivals has Duke second followed by Louisville, Wake Forest and Georgia Tech.

Florida State’s recruiting class includes Matthew Cleveland, a 6-foot-6-inch small forward from Alpharetta, Georgia, ranked 35th on ESPN’s list of top 100 prospects for 2021, its website reported.

Cleveland chose Florida State over Kansas, Michigan, Stanford, and N.C. State, Sports Illustrated reported. He averaged 22 points a game last season, leading his team, the Pace Academy Knights, to a state championship.

Late in the recruiting season, North Carolina and Kentucky approached Cleveland but he declined their invitations to start the recruiting process, he told Sports Illustrated.

“I’m big on loyalty,” Cleveland said, Sports Illustrated reported. “I wanted people who saw something in me before I developed along the way.”

Florida State has also recruited Jalen Worley, a 6-foot-5-inch small guard from Norristown, Pennsylvania, who ranks right behind Cleveland on the ESPN prospects list at 36.

He picked the school over Memphis, Miami, Michigan, Oregon and Virginia, even though he wasn’t able to visit the campus because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sports Illustrated reported.

“They’re gonna allow me to be a basketball player,” Warley told Sports Illustrated. “They’re gonna allow me freedom and that’s another big reason of why I wanted to go to Florida State in the first place and why it’s my home.”

Warley said head coach Leonard Hamilton told him he was about to cry when he committed to the school.

“It was definitely a special moment,” Warley said.

In addition to Cleveland and Warley, FSU has commitments from John Butler of Greenville, South Carolina, and Brice McGowens of Piedmont, South Carolina. Butler, a 6-foot-11-inch center, is ranked 48th in the ESPN list of 100 top recruits.

"I felt like I could play best in their offense and also their defense and to be able to show my skills and how I will be able to play at the next level," Butler told Sports Illustrated.