Michigan State basketball trending with 4-star PF Malik Hall

Michigan State basketball is trending for a big-time four-star forward in Malik Hill from Kansas. Can the Spartans steal a commitment on Thursday?

On Thursday afternoon, Sunrise Christian (Kan.) power forward Malik Hall is slated to announce his commitment. Hall, standing 6-foot-7, 190 pounds, is ranked 52nd in the nation in the 247Sports composite, putting him at 12th among power forwards. A few days ago, he released a top-three of MSU, Purdue and Oregon.

Michigan State seemed to be out of the picture, however, as Purdue was the unanimous favorite. Something seems to have changed, apparently, as Michigan State is now trending upwards the day before his announcement.

Brian Snow, a 247Sports recruiting expert, along with 247Sports Director of Basketball Scouting Jerry Meyer have both put in Crystal Balls for MSU on Wednesday morning. For what it’s worth, Brian Snow is 77/81 (95.06% accurate) with his 2019 class predictions and Meyer is 84/106 (79.25%).

As Spartan fans may recall, this similar scenario started unfolding with another 2019 four-star, Romeo Weems, except that was against MSU’s favor. He seemed to be a lock for the Spartans until the day before when Crystal Balls linking him to DePaul started coming in. That last-minute shift ended up being legitimate as Weems picked DePaul.

If Hall does pick Michigan State, it is unclear what it would mean for the Spartans’ recruiting picture as a whole, and how this would impact potential commitments from Isaiah Stewart and Vernon Carey. For both of those top-five overall big men, MSU is either the leader or runner-up by all accounts. In both cases, it seems to be down to MSU and Duke.

Stewart seems to be the most interested, however, Carey said he wants to team up with another star big wherever he goes. Plus, he recently booked his final, and arguably most impactful, official visit with the Spartans for November.

While it is very interesting to see this develop, this could all end up being false speculation. More often than not, though, where there is smoke, there is fire. Either way, we’ll find out tomorrow when Hall announces his college choice to the public.