Michigan State basketball makes Radford transfer Carlik Jones’ trimmed list

After reaching out to Carlik Jones last week, Michigan State basketball was named on his final list of schools which was trimmed to eight.

This is not familiar territory for Tom Izzo. He finds himself in a heated battle for one of the top names on the transfer market this offseason in Radford’s Carlik Jones, the reigning Big South Player of the Year.

When Jones announced that he would be entering the NCAA transfer portal last week, Michigan State was one of the first schools to reach out to him.

However, he had a wealth of options and Izzo would likely have to duke it out with dozens of programs to stay in the running. On Monday, he trimmed his list to a final eight schools, which includes Radford, and Michigan State made the cut.

The Spartans are listed there with West Virginia, Gonzaga, Maryland, Louisville, Marquette and Texas Tech as major programs in need of guard help. If he doesn’t pick Michigan State, Izzo has to hope he doesn’t end up at Maryland where he could hurt the Spartans twice next season.

Jake Weingarten also reports that Jones is keeping his NBA options open as well as a potential return to Radford for a final season.

For his NBA future, though, it’d be smart to choose from the list of those seven other schools, not including Radford, to try and get his name out there. He could become a star at a major program and he has that potential as he averaged 20 points per game in 2019-20 as well as 5.5 assists and 5.1 rebounds as a 6-foot-1, 180-pound point guard. He also shot career-bests 49 percent from the floor and 41 percent from three.

Michigan State has its work cut out, but making that final list is a good start. Now all the green and white have to do is show him campus, which may be done virtually.