Semi-OT: MSU adds 3rd 5 star bball recruit in recent weeks, wtf is happening in EL?
What, did MSU hire a bagman? They now have the top 2022 recruits from the US and Canada. This is unprecedented for Izzo, especially with his relative struggles developing 5 stars. So again, wtf is going on in East Lansing? Haven't seen this discussed here at all.
MSU basketball has recruited well for a very long time now.
No top 15 classes since '16. Yes, they've always been good, don't pretend this isn't an outlier worth discussing though.
You realize that's just the current senior class that graduated. Don't make it sound like it was that long ago. Only UK, KU, Duke, NC stay in the top 15 year in and year out.
Hope they have as much tournament success as Jaren Jackson and Miles Bridges.
Screw Sparty and Izzo...
I don't think I've ever seen talent as mismanaged as JJJ vs Syracuse. That whole game felt like Izzo outwitted himself.
Who’s JJJ? Sorry, don’t follow state enough to know nicknames.
In case you were legitimately curious, it's Jaren Jackson Jr.
The real question is how many of these 5 stars will ever play a minute of college ball?
It is coming 
This right here.
Also, "get" a bagman? This ain't new.
This is Izzo. He is the master of mindfucking his team into playing for him.
Yep crg is spot on here.
Note to all MSU fans: Don't count your chickens before the eggs hatch.
Yeah this isn't too surprising. Some how kids what to play for him. Best case scenario is they all stay committed then jump to the NBA at the last minute. That would be pretty sweet.
Boakye and Christie seem like the kind of recruits that Sparty often gets, just at a way higher level... I think of the long line of SG prospects that have made it to the NBA (Mo Pete, Kelvin Torbert, Shannon Brown, Gary Harris, Miles Bridges, Denzel Valentine). It makes sense to me based on the players, but I agree that it is weird that the pool from which Izzo is drawing seems to be much higher caliber.
Emoni Bates however is a different story. Everything I've read says he'll never play for Sparty, but the commitment is odd and seems to be tied to stuff outside of whether Bates actually wants to play for them.
I would actually be surprised if Bates DOESN'T attend MSU. Lots of dynamics in play there - his birth date, name/image/likeness, etc. - that I think there is more than a 50/50 chance he plays in EL.
Matt literally put in his last recruiting post that he has a reliable source saying Bates never intents to step foot on campus at MSU
Interesting. We'll see, some national folks also thinks he plays in college. Nobody will likely know until next spring (and who the heck knows if COVID wipes out his prep season if that impacts anything).
Why does it seem like MSU always pull 5*s who are decent at best in the NBA? Even Draymond Green has shown to be pretty subpar without a supporting cast of multiple MVPs
Green was a three star (at least on Rivals).
I think Draymond has had a great NBA career, and Gary Harris started off well but has weirdly gotten worse in the last few years. Other than that, Sparty's best shot at NBA glory seems to be JJJ, who could be legit. But Izzo has a cult and people will follow.
draymond green is about the only real success story under izzo; a guy that actually improved much more than his recruiting profile.
Tillman clearly qualifies.
"Draymond Green is bad" is a bananas basketball take. He can't be a fulcrum offensive player, sure, but he's insane as a distributor and defender.
He's a good role player but nothing more. Look at how he performed this year as the best player on the Warriors. He basically performed how he always but with worse efficiency. He was basically given the keys to the Warriors and regressed as a player. If he's as good of a player as people say he is, he should've honestly averaged close to a triple double. Draymond is a good piece for a championship team but is not someone you can build around
I don't agree that he's a role player just because you can't build a championship team around him. There are maybe five players in the NBA that qualify for that criterion. Nobody figured out how to build a championship team around Allen Iverson -- that doesn't make him a role player.
During their run, Draymond was one of the best team defenders I've ever seen. He's also an incredibly talented passing big man and the ideal championship level glue guy. In my opinion, longevity will be the distinguishing factor between his career and that of Dennis Rodman's, in terms of "all time great" status.
I don't put too much stock in any of the Warriors' performances this past year. If I was Draymond and D-LO and Eric Paschall were my two best teammates, I probably wouldn't play super hard either. Hard, low ceiling on that team without their hall-of-fame backcourt.
Draymond ... should not have the keys. Draymond is not an initiator or a lead ballhandler. That doesn't make him a "good role player," he is outstanding at many things. I dunno what to say here, this is silly.
(FWIW everyone regresses when they are the #1 option, even moreso when there is nobody else on your team who can play! The idea that he should've increased in efficiency without Steh and Klay... what?)
I think Bates plays 1 year for MSU, so do 3 out of 4 of 247s national recruiting expertts.
There's talk that Bates and this new guy will both reclassify to 2021, this new guy is older because of Canada so it seems a no brainer.
They're going to be tough to deal with, Howard has shown he can hang though.
Weird thing with his birth date, if he reclassifies to 21, he'd have to spend two years playing somewhere before entering NBA. Whether that be abroad, G League, MSU...or maybe a year at MSU then pro somewhere. Or it's possible Adam Silver makes an exemption and lets him in league after only a year.
“They”. Lol.
Still pretending to be a Michigan fan I see.
It could be interesting to see Coach Izzo "managing this newfound talent" bonanza. Will the group gel and progress on their way to the promised land? Or, will they flounder and wilt due to a crazy, screaming Izzo shouting in their faces, embarrassing and humiliating them, himself, and MSU on the national stage? One and done, either way. Is the new bonanza an anomaly or beginning of a new pipeline?
They're definitely recruiting well, but Matt D said that Bates has no intention of setting foot on campus, and Christie isn't as good as his ranking imo. His tape just does not show him being the #1 SG in the country and I'd take Keels over him any day of the week. I'm also not too worried about Howard's ability to recruit and coach bigs compared to MSU
I see them as having only two commitments in 2022? I see they got a 2021 5* commit a few weeks ago. Maybe that's what you mean.
Regardless, I don't think anyone realistically expects Emoni Bates to actually play at MSU. Especially now that the G-league is paying real money. The 2022 kid from Canada looks good, but is hardly a world-beater, all-world consensus 5* type kid. 247 has him as the 18th ranked player, and he isn't ranked elsewhere. Izzo has gotten this kind of kid regularly. Izzo has always recruited pretty well, so I wouldn't freak out about this...
MSU has always been right there for top recruits and ended up getting beat out by the Dukes and Kentuckys of the world or leading bagmen programs like Louisville and Kansas. Seems like Emoni Bates was the tipping point for them. What are the odds that the best basketball prospect in generations was born and raised in Michigan and has idolized Izzo his whole life? His commitment was pretty clearly the tipping point Izzo needed to go from second choice to first for some of these guys.
Could not tell from your post - who committed that caused this post?
Ok, I searched around and saw that Enoch Boakye, a class 2022 forward prospect from Canada, announced his commitment to Michigan State on Tuesday.
Top tier recruits want to play with other top tier recruits. If you can increase the odds of winning a championship and raising your own profile, it's a logical choice.
This isn't surprising or unprecedented. Izzo has gotten a bunch of 5 stars recently. JJJ, Bridges and Langford (same class as Winston and Ward), Deyonta Davis. His problem has been properly utilizing them and developing them.
Izzo just got Bates and is capitalizing on the hype. Bates won't ever make it to MSU but he's managed to get a 5 star in 2021 and 2022 out of it. Now let's see Izzo develop them.
I think the Bates commitment was basically a favor to MSU, players see he's committed and they commit. We'll see how many stick around.
I'm kind of thinking the same. Raised their national profile cheaply.
MSU recruits really well so it isn't totally surprising they have some success getting elite kids. At the same time, Izzo has been very vocal about how he wants to win another title before he retires and there were always rumors that he, um, loosened his standards regarding the bag when he was losing a ton of guys to Duke and UK. So it wouldn't shock me if the addition of Bates plus one final push to get a second title isn't a bit behind the surge.
This isn't some morality argument; I'm fine with guys getting paid. But if you told me this sort of pans out with his team bristling at his coaching a bit, them flaming out in the tournament after a good season, and that being the end of it all I wouldn't be shocked. Izzo is not great at developing elite guys if he doesn't have a decent amount of senior leadership to run his preferred style.
First, Izzo is a good coach. There is no point in denying it. He has not developed high talent for NBA, but I think that has to do with the kind of players that he recruited, and the NBA game has moved away from his style of play. Still, he is very good college coach. Second, none of these players may end up playing college ball anyway.
Izzo apparently is obsessed with winning a second national title and doesn't want to retire until that happens, so the 2020 tournament getting cancelled must have been a huge kick in the teeth for him. He's said to have "relaxed" his standards on recruiting, whatever that means.
That said, Emoni Bates probably won't end up playing college basketball. His commitment is probably more a personal favor to keep Izzo's program in the spotlight.
Interesting, this is not the first time I have heard this hence why I made the post. MSU fans on reddit even speculating he has decided to "look the other way" now in his haste.
Diverted “assets“ from the collapsing football program to basketball?
Free penicillin after the Harper's episode.
Izzo blows.
chances that the referenced best player in the u.s. ever steps foot on campus: zero percent.
Their football program is dead. They are back to being a basketball school. Will be fun watching Izzo waste the talent and lose to 14 and 15 seeds in the tourney. He'll blame his players even though he hasn't put a coherent, modern offensive scheme together in 15 years.
Have they not had bagmen for years? You should not be surprised by this.