The Only Report Card: Grading MSU basketball’s offseason

For the young students around the nation, it’s report card season.

Now that I’m permanently in the clear from receiving another report card again, it’s time I and all of you start dishing out the grades ourselves.

Anything can happen the rest of this summer, but with most of the dust settled let’s take a good ol’ gander at the Spartans offseason.

The bad news. I always like going through the bad news first so we end on a high note with the good news.

It wouldn’t be an MSU basketball offseason without a at least one dagger late in the recruiting game. Jabari Parker in 2013. Cliff Alexander in 2014. Caleb Swanigan in 2015. Josh Jackson in 2016. My hope to land a future big recruit in any upcoming spring in 2017.

This year has been no different with Brandon McCoy (UNLV) and likely Brian Bowen (who I believe is now three unofficial visits away from showing interest in all 351 Division 1 schools). If you want to count late targets Blake Harris (Mizzou) and Mark Smith (Illinois), we’ll count them too.

As of now, and of course this could change, the Spartans haven’t nabbed any transfers that could come in and make an immediate difference.

The Spartans are a really good team (hot take), but I think they could be upgraded to full-on “GREAT” if they added an outside threat like Bryn Forbes or a guard/wing scoring option like Brandon Wood or Eron Harris. Of course those kind of transfers don’t automatically come every year, but it looks like this isn’t the year for it too.

Brett Rojo-USA TODAY Sports

Now for the good news. Hey, no one has gotten seriously injured yet. And Ben Carter got a sixth year of eligibility! And and and we have two solid walk-ons coming in – one through transfer and another incoming freshman!!

Oh yeah, and do you guys remember when Miles Freaking Bridges said he was coming back?!? DO YOU REMEMBER GUYS?!?! WOOOOOO!!!

Getting Miles Bridges back next year is arguably the biggest splash of the college basketball offseason so far. Seeing what Miles Bridges can do on the wing next year? That’s…just…*faints*.

Having that corps of Bridges, Nick Ward, Cassius Winston and Joshua Langford back next season is absolute money.

Oh, and Izzo is also bringing one of his biggest recruits ever (literally) in with Jaren Jackson – the No. 7 recruit in the nation according to 247. Pair him with stout, 4-star big man Xavier Tillman, and it’s a strong class considering it’s just those two guys.

Let’s grade all of this: I give this offseason a B+.

TL;DR: Alright, so MSU stumbled to the finish line in recruiting (not good), but made up for it with a strong one-two, Jackson-Tillman punch (pretty good). No immediate game-changer has transferred to MSU, but no one has transferred away from MSU. However, with Bridges coming back and Jackson coming, that makes a mediocre offseason a pretty good one.

So, what do you guys think? Let’s hash it out in the comments section.