FSU women’s basketball continues their hot streak on the recruiting trail

Florida State got some more great news from the recruiting trail last night. 6’2 wing Morgan Jones (4*, #27 overall ESPN) announced that she is attending FSU. Jones (Jonesboro, GA) chose the Noles over Auburn, Georgia, Louisville, Miss St, NC St, Ohio St, South Carolina, Tennessee, and UCLA. Jones joins a class that is already special and could end up being historic. The class already features guard Izabela Nicoletti (5*, #4 overall), guard Kourtney Weber (4*, #28), and guard Amaya Brown (3* for now).

The Seminoles have a class that will very likely finish in the top 10 if not top 5 even if no more players are added. However, FSU will not stop here. This class is heavy in quality wings and guards but the Noles still need to add a post player. FSU is still in the running for 6’4 F/C Olivia Nelson-Ododa (5*, #3 overall). Nelson-Ododa is a mega recruit who would fit perfectly with what the Seminoles already have in this class.

Even without Nelson-Ododa this is an outstanding class. We can perform a quick exercise to illustrate just how good this class looks already. 247Sports has a feature that they call the class calculator. Using the class calculator we can estimate class rankings based on the players already in the class combined with prospective recruits that we can add to the class. Unfortunately they don’t have one for women but we can use the one that they have for the men as a proxy. I have given Amaya Brown a ranking of 50 even though she is presently a 3 star. I have done this because Brown was ranked #28 by ESPN before she sustained an ACL injury that forced her to miss her entire junior year. She is back and healthy and I am fully confident that she will regain her top 50 ranking when the rankings are revised.

The table below shows the four recruits presently in FSU’s class matched up with the male players that have their same ranking on 247. The points column represents the number of points that each player contributes to the class.

That point total (68.63) would have ranked fourth in the nation by an eyelash over UCLA (68.62) in 2017. The difference is that FSU is achieving this point total with only four recruits. UCLA needed six recruits to get to its point total. In case you are wondering, if Nelson-Ododa is added to the class the point total rises to 70.37 which would have ranked second nationally behind Kentucky (70.43) and just ahead of Duke (70.33). Of course Kentucky had eight players in its class while Duke had six. For FSU to be reaching this point total with only four or five players illustrates the quality of talent in this class. Of course this comparison isn’t perfect but it serves to give an idea of how well the Seminoles are recruiting right now.

Florida State also has a commitment from 2019 post player River Baldwin (4*, #17) from Andalusia, AL.