Florida State transfer Caleb Mills commits to Memphis basketball
Florida State graduate transfer Caleb Mills will play for Memphis basketball coach Penny Hardaway next season.
The 6-foot-5 sixth-year senior combo guard visited the Tigers this week and gave his verbal commitment to Hardaway on Friday, The Commercial Appeal confirmed. Rated the 26th-best player in the transfer portal by CBS Sports, he joins former Temple forward Nick Jourdain, who committed to Memphis last week. Mills has one season of eligibility remaining.
Last season, Mills averaged 13.0 points (third-most by a Seminole player) and 3.0 rebounds per game. But he led Florida State with 3.4 assists a game (14th in the ACC) and 43 total steals. His 83.6% success rate at the free throw line was tied for seventh in the ACC. Mills shot 29.6% from 3-point range last season (the lowest mark of his career) and 41.0% overall from the floor. In his only other two full seasons, Mills shot 36% (at Houston) and 35% (his first season at Florida State) beyond the arc.
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Mills, a product of Asheville Christian (Arden, N.C.), was a mid-season enrollee at Houston in 2018. After using his redshirt year, he earned all-AAC second-team honors as a freshman, then landed preseason AAC Player of the Year honors. But injuries kept him off the court for much of the 2020-21 season, and he eventually left the program in January for personal reasons after playing just four games. Mills then transferred to Florida State, where he played the past two seasons.
Mills' career scoring average sits at 12.8 points per game.
The Tigers are in need of a backcourt boost, especially in the scoring department. Point guard Kendric Davis, in his final collegiate season, accounted for 26.8% of the team's scoring. But Memphis also said goodbye to three other guards − fourth-leading scorer Elijah McCadden, fifth-leading scorer Alex Lomax and Damaria Franklin.
On top of Mills' addition, the Tigers are expected to return guards Jayden Hardaway and Johnathan Lawson. Also, of the four incoming freshmen Memphis has signed, two are true guards: 5-star Mikey Williams and 3-star Carl Cherenfant. Two more guards (4-star Ty-Laur Johnson and 3-star Ryan Forrest) are currently committed to Memphis but have not formally signed.
Hardaway is also hosting several other visitors this week, including wings Mustapha Amzil (Dayton), Teafale Lenard Jr. (MTSU), and Jonathan Pierre (Nova Southeastern).
Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @munzly.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Florida State transfer Caleb Mills commits to Memphis basketball
