Michigan State basketball makes final cut for 4-star SF Devin Royal

Michigan State basketball makes the final cut for one of the top small forwards in the 2023 class. Devin Royal is down to the Spartans and two others.

And then there were three.

Michigan State basketball has been focusing on its 2023 class and Xavier Booker just named the Spartans in his top 10 earlier in the week and now Devin Royal released a top three.

Yes, the Spartans made the cut.

Everyone kind of expected Michigan State and Ohio State to make the cut, but the third team was a bit of a mystery as it turned out to be Alabama. This feels like a two-team Big Ten race for Royal and the Buckeyes have a slight lead.

Right now, Michigan State seems to be in the lead for Booker who’s a five-star big man from Indiana but Royal is kind of that missing piece in the class. He would be the perfect complement to Jeremy Fears and Booker if that’s who happens to be in the class. And all three of those guys could end up as five-star prospects before it’s all said and done.

We’ll see when Royal plans on committing, but the longer this goes, I think the better chance the Spartans have. If they can get him on campus again, that’d be huge.

Fears has been recruiting Royal hard and Booker, too, so if the class ends up being those three, it could end up being the best in the Tom Izzo era.

Royal is ranked the No. 73 overall prospect and 14th-best small forward in the class, per the composite, but expect that ranking to improve.

Let’s see if Izzo can close here.