{"id":126251,"date":"2025-08-07T11:52:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T11:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/126251\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T11:52:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T11:52:08","slug":"why-robert-mccray-v-is-florida-states-most-important-team-transfer-for-2025-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/126251\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Robert McCray V is Florida State\u2019s most important team transfer for 2025-26"},"content":{"rendered":"

The retirement of longtime coach Leonard Hamilton meant ushering in a new era for the Seminoles and it\u2019s one of Hamilton\u2019s former players who gets the honor. Luke Loucks is now head coach for Florida State and he\u2019s hoping to rejuvenate a program that\u2019s been quite stagnant across the last four seasons. Last year\u2019s team struggled mightily at times but managed to scrape out a 17-15 record albeit in a tough year for the ACC as a whole.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a common refrain in this day and age, but just about everyone is gone from last season\u2019s roster for the Seminoles. Leading scorer Jamir Watkins was a senior and never coming back, but it hurts losing talented players like Taylor Bol Bowen, Daquan Davis, and Malique Ewin to prominent schools. A few freshmen from last season are returning in 7-footer Alier Maluk and forward AJ Swinton but neither played a ton last year.<\/p>\n

The list of new faces from the transfer portal is numerous, beginning with former Clemson forward Chauncey Wiggins<\/a>, an experienced ACC talent. Former St. Bonaventure wing Lajae Jones should secure starting minutes. Among the backcourt additions of note are Kobe Magee, who had nice production last year at Drexel, and Martin Somerville, a point guard who was America East Rookie of the Year at UMass Lowell.<\/p>\n

However, the focus today is on Robert McCray V <\/a>as the most important new Seminole for several reasons. A 6-4 point guard from Columbia, South Carolina, his career began here in the ACC at Wake Forest, playing backup minutes before redshirting his sophomore year. McCray then transferred to Jacksonville and became one of the A-Sun\u2019s most notable guards, scoring more than 18 points per game in his first season. Last year as a junior he put up 16.2 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 4.5 assists per night while earning First Team All-A-Sun honors.<\/p>\n

Jumping back to the ACC after success in the A-Sun isn\u2019t easy, but it\u2019s the fact that he has that prior experience that makes McCray an intriguing addition. He was stuffing the stat sheets at Jacksonville and became a phenomenal point guard leading these Dolphins, but can he do similar work with the Seminoles? The step up in talent will be significant and his 3-point shooting numbers did take a step back last season, but we believe that McCray can be a very important piece in this backcourt.<\/p>\n

This ragtag group of new talent has a lot on their shoulders and it\u2019s hard to picture Florida State competing with that top echelon of ACC schools. They certainly need some of these new faces to step up, especially those with prior ACC experience like McCray and Wiggins. Raw talent is one thing, but McCray has shown his athleticism and ability to run an offense and it\u2019s all about if he can be that same type of player under the brighter lights of power conference basketball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The retirement of longtime coach Leonard Hamilton meant ushering in a new era for the Seminoles and it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":126252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-126251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114987345037152085","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}