Michigan State basketball: Xavier Booker vaults to No. 3 in ESPN rankings

Prior to Monday, ESPN didn’t have Michigan State basketball commit Xavier Booker in its top 100 rankings for the 2023 class.

Tom Izzo knew what he was doing when he pushed harder for Xavier Booker than any other Michigan State basketball target in years.

Booker was ranked somewhere in the 90s as of April, according to 247Sports. Even on the composite, he wasn’t getting a ton of respect, ranking No. 103 in the class in May. Yet Izzo continued to push hard for the four-star big man because he knew something we didn’t: Booker was about to blow up.

After a strong spring and summer, Booker was vaulted to No. 4 in the updated 247Sports rankings in late May but he was still just 58th in the composite. That was until Monday.

In fact, his composite remained low despite 247Sports and Rivals both listing him as a five-star and top-five player in the class because of ESPN’s rankings. The worldwide leader in sports didn’t even have Booker listed in their top 100 for the 2023 class which was shocking and disappointing in so many ways.

That changed on Monday as ESPN released its new top-100 rankings.

Booker went from not being listed in the top 100 to No. 3 on ESPN which, in turn, bumped his composite up all the way to No. 3 in the country. He’s finally getting the respect he deserves from every recruiting database.

While Booker saw a massive climb on ESPN, all three of the other Michigan State commits in 2023 appeared in the top 100 as well. Jeremy Fears is now No. 34, Coen Carr is No. 71, and Gehrig Normand is No. 98.

This makes Michigan State’s class the second-best in the country for 2023.