Jarquez Smith commits to Florida State

On Saturday night Florida State scored a major recruiting victory when Xavier Rathan-Mayes committed to Coach Hamilton and FSU. 24-hours later, there's another commit. Florida State fans showed out in mass for Seminole Madness, and two days later they now have a great recruiting class cemented for 2013.

This time it's 6-9 power forward Jarquez Smith out of Jones County, Georgia (NE of Macon). Smith is another ESPN top-100 player (No. 78) and had offers from Georgia Tech and about half the SEC schools. He was on campus this weekend, and finished that visit with a commitment. It's no surprise that he ended up in the Noles camp, but it came earlier than most expected.

Smith has tremendous skills for his size, and should develop into a fantastic face-up 4 at the college level. He has range out to the 3-point line and will spend his senior season in high school further developing his post game. His limitation is lack of strength and explosiveness. But these can be corrected in a college strength and conditioning program. How soon he plays will depend on how well his post game develops.

UPDATE: I've been getting a lot of questions about his immediate impact. Yes, he has a great shot for his size, and is offensively gifted. But to be clear, in his future role he'll need to be able to play in the post, and be aggressive around the basket, which he is not able to do currently.

Coach Hamilton has had some success with stretch-4's from Georgia in the past (Al Thornton, Chris Singleton), and that reputation paid off in Smith's recruitment.

With two scholarships to offer, this fills FSU's class. But this assumes there won't be any attrition, and that's never a good bet. Ian Miller should be ready for the NBA, and if he jumps then FSU will have another scholarship to offer.

Either way, the staff deserves a lot of credit filling the available slots with consensus top-100 players.