With Moneyball about to begin on Tuesday night at Holt High School, Michigan State fans are already planning out their schedules. Many Spartan fans will make their way to Holt High to check in on this year’s Spartans, especially the newcomers.
Every year, Michigan State fans get treated to about a month-long break from an uneventful offseason thanks to a partnership with the Moneyball Pro-Am.
Spartans get split up into several different teams by twos, and this year, a new name was entered into the mix. We saw Anton Bonke get paired up with fellow newcomer Carlos Medlock Jr., Ethan Taylor will be with Jeremy Fears, Julius Avent is with Jordan Scott, and Jasiah Jervis is with Cam Ward.
There was a name that Spartan fans aren’t familiar with who was paired with FAU transfer Kaleb Glenn who missed the entire 2025-26 season with an injury.
Matthew Watkins was paired with Glenn and many wondered immediately who that was. Well, after doing a little bit of research, it sounds like Watkins has been around the team for a couple of years as a student manager. Now, he’s a Spartan. You don’t often see student managers make that leap at the college level, but Watkins was a really good basketball player.
According to his player profile, he played varsity basketball at Perrysburg High School.
Now he’s an injury or two away from playing meaningful Division I minutes.
Matthew Watkins’ dream was to play college ball
Also on his player profile was a short description of his goals and dreams. He said that his goal was to go to college and get a great education because he knows that basketball won’t last forever. He said his other goal was to play college basketball and that he’d do anything to help his teammates.
Well, Watkins got his wish as a walk-on at Michigan State and now he’s apparently going to don the No. 99 previously worn by Divine Ugochukwu before his transfer.
Izzo was able to make a student manager’s dream come true, promoting him from team helper to the actual roster as a walk-on. This is one of those stories that we’ll probably hear a lot of this season as Michigan State makes its push to a Final Four in Detroit. Will we see a lot of Watkins this season? That remains to be seen, but if we do, it probably means an injury has occurred.
Everyone loves a feel-good story.
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