As just a freshman for Michigan State basketball, Kur Teng's role has been almost non-existent. He's appeared in 16 games this season and is averaging just 3.0 minutes and 0.6 points per game.
It's safe to say he wasn't a big part of the plans this year.
And that's OK. We've seen true freshmen play minimally only to see their roles increase drastically in years two and three and become stars by their senior seasons. No one is panicking about Teng's inability to see the floor this season because it was almost expected. Maybe not to this degree, but he was always projected on the back end of the rotation, at best.
However, when he came to East Lansing, the talk was that he was a sharpshooter who may have been one of the best pure shooters in the 2024 recruiting class.
In fact, Jamie Shaw of On3 listed Teng as one of the best shooters in the 2024 class in his final superlatives article in the cycle. Here's what Shaw had to say about Teng:
"Kur Teng turned in one of the most impressive shooting performances this summer. The 6-foot-4 shooting guard torched the Adidas 3SSB Circuit to the tune of 47 percent from three on 3.0 makes per game. Teng shoots well off movement and was very comfortable getting his feet set and his balance squared. The arms and long, and the release is quick and consistent. Overall it was a very comfortable few months of basketball for Teng as the Michigan State commit averaged 17.5 points per game. "Jamie Shaw, On3
Clearly Teng was expected to be one of the top sharpshooters in the freshman class, but he's just 2-for-8 from deep on the season. Still, he has the ability to make the shots, so why not give him some run?
I get it, it's too late in the season to try and work in some extra rotational pieces like Teng or even Gehrig Normand, but in situations like on Tuesday night when no one's shot is falling and the zone is giving Michigan State all it can handle, throwing a guy who can break the zone with some threes and make the defense over-correct to try and stop him would be an interesting move.
Obviously Izzo knows more than me because he's a Hall of Famer, but if a team is just going to jack up threes all game, why not throw a guy who has had his redshirt burned officially and who came in as one of the top shooters in his class in the game?
Teng's confidence would surely increase and his minutes might become valuable down the stretch.