Florida State guard Matthew Cleveland to enter NCAA transfer portal

Florida State guard Matthew Cleveland will enter the NCAA transfer portal, he announced on his Twitter account on Wednesday evening.

Cleveland averaged 13.8 points and 7.4 rebounds per game for the Seminoles in his sophomore season in 2022-23. He was an integral part of the team and his loss will be a difficult one for Florida State.

While his numbers improved as a sophomore, Cleveland was also quite good as a freshman. In his rookie season he averaged 11.5 points and 4.6 rebounds per game.

Before enrolling at Florida State and later hitting the NCAA transfer portal, Matthew Cleveland was a top 25 prospect. He was ranked as the No. 25 overall player in the 2021 recruiting class according to the On3 Industry Rankings.

He checked in as the No. 7 small forward in the class and the No. 3 player in the state of Georgia, hailing from Alpharetta (Ga.) Pace Academy.

To keep up with the latest players on the move, check out On3’s Transfer Portal wire.

Transfer portal background information

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored. In other words, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship anymore.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.

The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August. For example, the 2021-22 cycle started Aug. 1. During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS football players entered the transfer portal (including walk-ons). That comes after 1,681 entered during the 2019-20 cycle and 1,709 during the abbreviated 2018-19 cycle. In comparison, 1,833 Division I basketball players entered the portal during the 2020-21 cycle after totals of 1,020 in 2019-20 and 1,063 in 2018-19.