Leonard Hamilton knows Florida State will never be a basketball school. While the Seminoles have failed to reach the NCAA Tournament on the hardwood each of the last three seasons, Jimbo Fisher has returned the football program to one of the nation's best over the same time frame. In the last two seasons alone, Florida State has lost exactly one football game, winning a national title and watching their star quarterback claim the Heisman Trophy in the process.
It's no secret that success on the football field can have tangible benefits for a university: The number of applications from perspective students rise, alumni tend to be more generous with their money and the newfound national exposure creates the sort of organic publicity that can't be bought. Which makes you wonder: Has Florida State's football success been the precipice for jump-starting the basketball program's recent recruiting hot streak?
If nothing else, it can't hurt. While Florida State has only reached the NCAA Tournament four times in Hamilton's 13 years as head coach, there aren't many schools recruiting better basketball talent than FSU right now. The Seminoles landed a marquee recruit for the class of 2016 last month when five-star forward Jonathan Isaac signed on to a class that already included two other top-100 players. This follows Hamilton's strong 2015 recruiting class that also includes three top-100 players.
Hamilton likely feels his seat growing hotter after some recent down years, so perhaps his recruiting success is more born out of desperation. It's certainly helps that both Isaac and incoming five-star guard Dwayne Bacon are both Florida natives. There's a countless number of factors that go into recruiting, and one of the biggest is simply getting lucky enough to have really talented players born in your state.
Seven programs landed multiple top-30 players in the class of 2015, according to ESPN's rankings, and Florida State was one of them. Other coaches are starting to fear recruiting against Hamilton when he wants a kid from Florida or Georgia. With Billy Donovan leaving Florida to coach Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook in the NBA, the Seminoles might now be the state's destination program.
It was only a few years ago when Hamilton was thought to have Florida State in the driver's seat to land one of the most coveted recruits in college basketball history. Andrew Wiggins' parents met at FSU, where they were each star athletes. Wiggins' recruitment was shrouded in secrecy until he picked Kansas at the 11th hour, but FSU has rebounded to build that might be even more sustainable.
The influx of talent starts this year with three wings: Dwayne Bacon, Malik Beasley and Terance Mann. Bacon, ranked the No. 14 recruit in the class by ESPN, could be a legitimate star. He's a 6'6 shooting guard who spent his last two years of high school at Oak Hill, where he grew into one of the most physically dominant wing prospects in the country.
Bacon is a relentless attack with long arms and great athleticism. He could be a one-and-done talent if he has a big year, but the presence of Beasley and returning sophomore gunner Xavier Rathan-Mayes means there might not be a ton of shots to go around. Throw in senior Montay Brandon (who averaged 11.8 points per game last year) and the biggest subplot to FSU's season might be how all of these scorers coexist.
Beasley, the No. 28 recruit in the country according to ESPN, is a big-time bucket getter in his own right. Beasley was fifth on Nike's EYBL circuit in points per game with a lightning quick first step and a reliable mid-range game. Rathan-Mayes may be known for his 36-points-in-under-four-minutes scoring outburst against Miami last year, but he's also a willing passer who led the team with 4.3 assists per game.
If the young Seminoles learn to share the ball, there will be so many scoring options on the floor others teams won't know what to do. With 7'3 senior center Boris Bojanovsky and 7'1 senior center Michael Ojo backing him up, Florida State should be able to play small around its centers and let the big man protect the paint by himself defensively.
Should Bacon return for his sophomore year, Florida State's strong 2016 class would give them a chance to be among the better teams in the country. Isaac is the crown jewel as one of the fastest rising prospects in the country over the last year. The beneficiary of a big growth spurt over the last couple years, Isaac is now a 6'10 forward with guard skills who prefers attacking from the perimeter rather than inside.
Isaac will be playing along two great incoming guards in Trent Forrest and C.J. Walker. Forrest was the top guard on the Georgia Stars, Nike's champion grassroots team on the EYBL. He can play either guard spot at 6'4 and should give Hamilton some lineup flexibility to mix and match pieces around whoever the 2016-17 team has returning. Walker, a former Purdue commit, is a pure point guard and one of the best players in the state of Indiana.
As Michael Rogner detailed at Tomahawk Nation, getting a new Athletic Direction who actually cared about basketball and hiring assistants with connections in Georgia has also helped make a major difference in recruiting. FSU can point to a football program as visible as any in the country -- one that helped 18 players get drafted over the last two season -- and tell them they can start a new tradition in basketball. With new Florida coach Michael White just getting his feet wet in Gainesville, now is the time for Florida State to make moves.
The ACC will always have its traditional powers in North Carolina and Duke, and Louisville, Virginia and Syracuse keep recruiting a high level, too. Building a basketball power essentially from scratch isn't easy, but Hamilton has at least given the Seminoles a puncher's chance at competing with the conference's heavyweights. For where FSU basketball has been at recently, it's hard to ask for much more than that.