Michigan State basketball got a handful of surprise news on Wednesday morning as Divine Ugochukwu entered the transfer portal and big man Anton Bonke committed to the Spartans.
Tom Izzo had already known about Ugochukwu (obviously) the night before as he entered the transfer portal at the very last second and it closed on Tuesday at 11:59 p.m. He had also known about Bonke’s decision, although he admitted on The Drive with Jack Ebling that he thought the Charlotte center was originally going to Kansas.
Bonke picked the Spartans and shortly after, his agent made it clear that he was focused on the draft process. He entered his name into the draft likely with the intention to return, and it looks like he will.
In fact, Izzo revealed on Ebling’s podcast on Thursday that Bonke was officially signed so he was allowed to talk about him. From there, he gushed about Bonke as a student athlete. He also said that he’s excited about his ability to shoot the ball a little bit and the Spartans had to beat out the likes of Kansas, Gonzaga, Purdue, Texas Tech, and BYU for the 7-foot-2 center.
It’s obvious that Izzo is excited about the big man who’s originally from overseas. He likes the way he moves for his size and he knows he can mold him into a Carson Cooper-type.
The team approves of Bonke, and that’s all the blessing that Izzo needed.
Anton Bonke will be on the positive end of Izzo’s transfer spectrum
Izzo has landed several key transfers since the NIL era began, but not all of them panned out the way he would have liked. Others, however, became stars. Guys like Tyson Walker and Joey Hauser became fan favorites and embodied everything it meant to be a ‘Spartan Dawg’.
Other transfers didn’t quite have the MSU careers they would’ve hoped for like Frankie Fidler and Trey Fort, but both guys have said that they wouldn’t have changed their decision to come to East Lansing.
Bonke, in my opinion, is going to end up more on the Walker and Hauser end of the transfer portal success spectrum. The 7-foot-2 center is going to benefit from an entire summer under Izzo and Saddi Washington and he’s going to build a strong rapport with the team that’s already all well-connected. With only one incoming transfer, it’ll be easy for the team to help him assimilate.
Plus, I just think he has the perfect skillset for what Michigan State needs. He’s massive at 7-foot-2 and 255 pounds, and he can move well, pick-and-roll, pick-and-pop, and he can be a lob threat in the way that Cooper was over the past few years.
Bonke is going to surprise some people.
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