Did Vernon Carey Jr.’s mom want her son to play for Michigan State basketball?

An interesting development took place in the comment section on Instagram. Did Vernon Carey Jr.’s mom want her son to play for Michigan State basketball?

Michigan State has had its fair share of recruiting misses over the years, and often times Duke is on the other side of that, reeling in the five-star recruit who was “this close” to picking the Spartans.

The poster child of this type of recruitment was Jabari Parker and then that was followed up by Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones but the most recent had to be Vernon Carey Jr.

Tom Izzo felt good about his chances with the five-star big man and arguably the No. 1 center in the country in the 2019 class but he picked Duke in the end. He was looking green for a bit and there was even talk that Michigan State was his leader, but no one was egregiously shocked when he donned a Duke hat on ESPN.

But it seems as if Michigan State had some family members of Carey Jr. in its corner during the whole process. Most surprisingly, it was Carey Jr.’s mom, LaTavia, who wanted her son to consider Michigan State strongly. Did she even want her son to pick the green and white?

So let’s dissect this a bit.

Jaylen Carey is Vernon’s younger brother and a 2023 recruit, so him saying this about Michigan State could help the Spartans down the line. Next, “supa_muva_to_4” is apparently LaTavia Carey, the mom of both Jaylen and Vernon, and her saying that “if only your (blood emoji) listened to his mother” is very telling about what she wanted from his college choice.

How this could help Michigan State basketball

The more we see things like this make rounds across social media, the more top recruits take note and potentially pencil in Michigan State as a program to seriously consider.

While Carey Jr. turning down Michigan State against — what looks like — his mother’s wishes doesn’t exactly help Izzo and the Spartans right now, it shows that the program drew the attention of some important people and won them over. The same has happened for Parker as he’s endorsed Izzo on multiple occasions and said that he’d recommend any Chicago-area recruits go to Michigan State.

This doesn’t do anything now seeing as Carey Jr. played a season at Duke, roughed Michigan State up in December in East Lansing and is heading to the NBA, but it’s just another example of how the Spartans don’t miss on these recruits by much.

Almost painful to hear after the damage has been done.