Despite some recent unfortunate injury news for Michigan State, Jon Rothstein still considers the Spartans a top 25 team ahead of the 2025-26 season.
Rothstein, a well-known college basketball insider with CBS Sports, released updated preseason rankings for the 2025-26 campaign, and he has Michigan State at No. 21.
Michigan State lost incoming transfer wing Kaleb Glenn to a season-ending injury suffered during offseason workouts. He was expected to be one of the Spartans’ key reserves off the bench this season.
Among Big Ten teams, Michigan State is ranked fifth. The Spartans are behind Purdue (No. 1), Michigan (No. 5), UCLA (No. 6) and Oregon (No. 20). Rothstein’s rankings include the top 45 teams in the country, so he also had six Big Ten teams listed below the Spartans on the list: Illinois (No. 22), Wisconsin (No. 23), Ohio State (No. 26), USC (No. 33), Maryland (No. 35) and Nebraska (No. 41).
The ranking for the Spartans didn’t change despite the loss of Glenn, which I found somewhat surprising. It’s also hard to truly understand the effect of losing Glenn since he was an incoming transfer and not considered a starter. From that perspective, leaving Michigan State put also makes sense.
Click on the post below to see the complete rankings from Rothstein:
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This article originally appeared on Spartans Wire: Up or down? See where MSU basketball ranks in latest preseason poll from Jon Rothstein
Reporting by Robert Bondy, Spartans Wire / Spartans Wire
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