Carl Cleveland, the most decorated basketball player in Banks County history, is taking his talents across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n
The 2020 Banks County graduate and recent Young Harris College standout announced this week that he has signed a professional contract with the Leuven Bears, in Belgium\u2019s premier BNXT League.<\/p>\n
With the signing, Cleveland makes history yet again. According to his father, Mike Cleveland, Carl is the first-ever former Leopard to play professional basketball, and only the second athlete in Banks County history to reach the pro ranks, joining former professional football player Terry Allen.<\/p>\n
Cleveland heads to Europe after rewriting the record books at every stop of his career. He leaves behind an astonishing basketball resume in North Georgia:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Banks County HS: 2,445 career points (All-time program record)<\/p>\n
\u2022 Young Harris College: 2,344 career points (All-time program record)<\/p>\n
At Young Harris, Cleveland didn\u2019t just break the scoring record, he dominated nearly every statistical category. He departs as the program\u2019s all-time leading rebounder, 1st in total field goals, 1st in free throws, 1st in field goal percentage, and 1st in games played. He also ranks 3rd in 3-pointers, 5th in assists, and 10th in steals. In his final collegiate season, Cleveland put on a clinic, dropping 30-plus points 12 times, including two career-high 40-point performances.<\/p>\n
While Cleveland is accustomed to winning at a high level, trading the hills of North Georgia for the streets of Belgium will be an adjustment. Cleveland is scheduled to fly out to Belgium on August 12 to officially join the team for training camp on August 15.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carl Cleveland, the most decorated basketball player in Banks County history, is taking his talents across the Atlantic.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[2935,7,1176],"class_list":["post-23802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-banks","tag-belgium","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116807338356258170","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}