2nd Look At The 2026-27 Michigan State Spartans Men’s Basketball Team

In our original piece, we had projected Ugochukwu to be the starting shooting guard in 2026-27. We believed he would come out on top of a three-man race between himself, Kur Teng, and Josiah Jervis to be Jeremy Fears Jr.’s backcourt running mate. Our original starting 5 was:

PG: Jeremy Fears Jr.

SG: Divine Ugochukwu

SF: Jordan Scott

PF: Coen Carr

C: Ethan Taylor

With the Divine departure and the Anton arrival (how you like those adjacent alliterations?), we had a few options to consider in our new projection. In the front court, the question was if we were ready to hand Bonke the starting center spot over incoming top-40 freshman, Ethan Taylor. In the back court, there were a few possibilities for how to handle the opening at SG. We could have simply taken Teng or Jervis and plugged them into Ugo’s spot. We could have slid Scott and Carr to the 2 and 3 roles, like they were last year, and put Cam Ward at the 4. Or we could have moved 2025 portal transfer Kaleb Glenn into the 3-spot between Scott and Carr. Like last time, we trusted the democratic process.

Our new projected starting lineup for 2026-27 is:

PG: Jeremy Fears Jr.

SG: Jordan Scott

SF: Kaleb Glenn

PF: Coen Carr

C: Anton Bonke

In this event, we would then have the following depth:

PG: Carlos Medlock Jr.

SG: Kur Teng

SF: Jasiah Jervis

PF: Cam Ward, Jesse McCulloch

C: Ethan Taylor, Jesse McCulloch

In our 2nd projection, we are still predicting a small-ball starting 5 with Coen Carr at the PF spot. When he goes to the bench, either Ward or McCulloch would allow Izzo to role with a more traditional lineup with 2 bigs on the court, though those two admittedly have very different skill sets. We also believe this version of the starters offers ample shooting and the ability to spread the floor. Jeremy Fears’ three-point shooting improved greatly toward the end of last season. Jordan Scott regressed a little at the end but still finished at 37%; hopefully some more consistency has him above 40% next year. Kaleb Glenn shot 41% from deep in his last season of action at Florida Atlantic. Even Bonke shot 34% from beyond the arc for Charlotte, though he only took about one per game. Among the reserves, we know that Teng and McCulloch are reliable shooters, and we will see what we get from the freshmen.

As in our initial projection, this leaves Julius Avent, the 4th incoming freshman, and the Walton Twins, Colin and Brennan, at the end of the bench. There are now 14 players signed for next year’s roster, leaving one open spot. Could we still see the implementation of the 5th year of eligibility rule and get one of Carson Cooper or Jaxon Kohler back? Will Coach Izzo get a depth point guard to play with the third string (or to take minutes from Medlock in order to infuriate TOC Nation)?

Let’s hear from you. Do you agree with this version of the starting lineup? What will the minutes look like? Will we fill that 15th spot?