For the most part, this spring has played out as Tom Izzo hoped it would — his roster largely retained, a big man added, the culture he’s worked so hard to keep, intact.
Izzo believes next season’s Michigan State’s basketball team will be among his most complete.
“Not the most talented roster I’ve had, but I think more complete than a lot of rosters I’ve had,” Izzo said this week, during a conversation on his team and happenings within the sport of college basketball.
MSU under Izzo does not live in a bubble, but his ability to, so far, protect what he’s built over 31 seasons allows the program to remain recognizable, with year-over-year continuity resembling an era that no longer exists.
Next season’s team features seven returning scholarship players, three incoming freshmen and one incoming transfer — 7-foot-2 Anton Bonke. The Spartans are losing one transfer, guard Divine Ugochukwu, who entered the transfer portal just before it closed (and is reportedly headed to LSU), and four seniors who were part of the playing rotation. In terms of roster makeup, this isn’t all that different than 2016, 2006 or even 1996.
What’s different is that this old-school roster comes at a new-age price, expected to be more than double last year’s total budget, as the cost of assembling and retaining a competitive roster multiplies. Izzo didn’t want to publicly share specifics, but it’s reasonable to estimate it’ll be north of $10 million — a combination of $4-5 million from revenue sharing that goes to men’s basketball and the rest from additional NIL.
That includes bringing in Bonke, who, along with redshirt sophomore Jesse McCulloch and incoming freshman Ethan Taylor, will try to fill the void at center left by Carson Cooper and Jaxon Kohler.
“I thought we needed to get another big,” Izzo said, “and, even though I really still like Jesse McCulloch a lot and I think he’s going to help us, Ethan is probably going to be a year away — I mean, it’s just the way it is with most big guys — and so we thought we needed another big. We thought, other than that, we were really solid at all positions. And, sure, it’s going to be different, but we think Cam Ward’s going to be a hell of a player (at power forward) and we also had Kaleb (Glenn) sitting out that can play a couple different positions. And so, with what we’ve got coming in, we only wanted to really get one guy.”
That’s even with Ugochukwu’s departure. MSU wanted him back. Izzo believes he mostly wanted to stay. But if there was a logjam on the roster, it was in the backcourt.
In looking for a center, they liked a lot about Bonke, who played at Charlotte last season, after spending a year each at Providence and in the junior college ranks.
“Well, he’s big,” Izzo said. “I mean, he’s 7-1 or 7-2, and he’s 270 (pounds). … This guy doesn’t look 7-2 in some ways, or 7-1, because he’s like perfectly proportioned. He’s got to keep getting quicker, but he can shoot a 3. He’s got strength. We think he’s going to be able to guard. He’s a pretty smart kid. We like him.
“I didn’t think we’re going to get him in the end, because there were some schools that offered more, and I didn’t think we were going to get him. And he came back around, thanks to himself. … I think he’s going to really help us. I think Jesse is going to improve a lot. And I’m hoping Ethan comes on some.”
Also important: Bonke, McCulloch and Taylor shouldn’t have to make up for any other holes on the roster. They just have to fill one.
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Izzo wasn’t sure he’d have this many guys coming back.
“I was surprised a little bit, but I was happy,” Izzo said. “Because there still is something about having everybody together, and while you sacrifice a little more talent, I think retaining your guys helps, not only the guys there, but it helps the rookies coming in, because that way they have somebody to walk them around and lead them.
“And I think that’s a big factor we pushed — do you want to go somewhere where there’s 10 new guys, and nobody knows where the gym floor is, or you want to come in and be a part of something that is growing? The price for that isn’t necessarily in money owed, but we have to spend more time with our kids. It’s so that there are those relationships. That’s when I’ll be out, when that doesn’t matter, it’ll just be goodbye.”
You can see the completeness of the roster in the depth: Jeremy Fears Jr. and freshman Carlos Medlock Jr. at point guard; Jordan Scott, freshman Josiah Jervis and Kur Teng at shooting guard; Coen Carr, Kaleb Glenn and Scott on the wing; Cam Ward, Glenn and freshman Julius Avent at power forward; Bonke, McCulloch and Taylor at center.
Fears is the centerpiece of that — an All-American who’s shown he can lead a team to a pretty high level, with a chance to etch his name among the great point guards in MSU history. Fears entered the NBA draft but is expected to return. He still has room to improve defensively and with his left hand and, of course, with his shooting, areas that could still elevate his NBA profile and elevate the Spartans.
“I’m really happy with Jeremy,” Izzo said. “Jeremy didn’t threaten to go in the portal. I’ve been really pleased with Jeremy. Now he is testing the (NBA) market, and who knows? As they say, it only takes one team. But I think he’s looking at it that unless something happens crazy, he’ll be back, and we’re looking at (it like) that, and we’ll see what happens. But I think he’s matured and grown as much as any. And sometimes when you go through the shit that he went through, you come out better on the other side.”
While it might be a complete roster, it’s not an entirely healthy one right now. Teng is out after having surgery on a broken bone in his foot.
“They expect a full recovery,” Izzo said. “It’s just a matter of time. They did have to do surgery, so it’ll take a little longer. He’ll miss part of the summer. Depends how much he comes back quick, but I mean, we have some experience, and we have some good guys, and we have some guys that have been through it. Now we’re trying to schedule the world again.”
That includes a game at Tennessee that’s not been finalized but that Volunteers coach Rick Barnes let slip recently. That’s on top of a home exhibition against Connecticut and neutral site games against Duke, at the Champions Classic in Chicago, Arkansas in Detroit on Thanksgiving, and Gonzaga in Palm Desert, California, just before Christmas. Izzo said they’re still hoping to add one more home game to the schedule.
The season will almost certainly end in the NCAA tournament again, given that it has for 28 straight seasons when an NCAA tournament has been played. The likelihood of that streak continuing will only increase with the addition of eight more teams to the field. The NCAA tournament is expanding to 76, even though almost no one seems to want it. Count Izzo among the masses.
“I wasn’t crazy about it,” Izzo said. “It ain’t broke. Why fix it?”
This coming MSU team might have also had Cooper and/or Kohler back for its gauntlet, if the NCAA’s proposed rule change allowing athletes to compete for five seasons over five years, beginning when they graduate high school or turn 19 (whichever comes first) had included last year’s four-year seniors. It does not at this point.
Izzo said they were monitoring that, but quickly figured out that it wasn’t something that was likely to allow Cooper and Kohler to return. Izzo likes parts of the new “5-for-5” rule, though doesn’t like that it entirely negates redshirting, which he thinks is beneficial for some players, and would prefer if the eligibility limit was strictly age-based.
“But, listen, until they address the one-time transfer (meaning athletes would have to sit out a year beyond that if they transferred again), there’s nothing that’s going to help anything,” Izzo said. “There’s no money, there’s nothing that’s going to help anything, until they do that. Because that creates all the problems. … If they don’t address the transfer rule, nothing else matters, if you ask me.”
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Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Couch: Izzo has a new big man and most of his MSU basketball team back in what he thinks is one of his more complete rosters
Reporting by Graham Couch, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
