Michigan State Basketball: Xavier Booker could be Jaren Jackson Jr. 2.0

After making a massive leap in recruiting rankings, Xavier Booker is looking more like a potential Jaren Jackson Jr. 2.0 for Michigan State basketball.

Tom Izzo is looking like a genius right about now.

No, I’m not talking about his decision to stand pat with the current roster even though Michigan State basketball has a few open scholarships for the 2022-23 season, but rather I’m talking about his heavy pursuit of Xavier Booker early on in the 2023 class.

Even when Booker was ranked No. 91 in the country according to 247Sports, Izzo made him a priority and tried to sell him on the “come here and be the next Jaren Jackson Jr.” angle.

It’s seemingly worked up to this point because if there was a leader to be named in his recruitment, it’d likely be the Spartans even though Duke and Kansas have recently gotten involved. And for good reason; Booker is having an elite spring and early summer.

It felt like only a matter of time before the rest of the nation realized just how good he is. Well, after some Duke and Kansas interest, Booker has received a massive rankings boost.

In fact, he’s gone from No. 91 on 247Sports to the No. 4 overall recruit in the 2023 class. He’s the nation’s second-best power forward and the top prospect from the basketball-rich state of Indiana.

Does that sound familiar?

Jaren Jackson Jr. had a somewhat similar (albeit not as drastic) type of recruiting jump in the 2017 class, going from the 20-30 range all the way up to No. 5. Michigan State got a huge steal when he committed and he ended up being one of the best NBA prospects in the nation after one year. Just like Booker, he was from the Indianapolis area and stands about 6-foot-10 with impressive length out of high school.

Jackson was a little thicker at 226 pounds while Booker is at 205, but their games are eerily similar. Both are fantastic rim protectors and can finish close to the hoop themselves. Both have long, slender frames that cause nightmares for opposing bigs. And now both are/were top-10 prospects in their respective classes after getting a huge recruiting bump.

Michigan State benefited greatly from Jackson Jr. and Booker could be the second coming of that.

Size, skill set, length, playing style, and home state. Those are just a few things that Booker and Jackson Jr. have in common, but let’s hope “Michigan State star” joins that list.