Summer hoops are officially underway as Michigan State basketball began practice this week and the team teased fans with an 80-second clip from a short scrimmage to which everyone, including myself, promptly overreacted.
The Spartans are entering the dog days of summer which means that outside of conditioning and some practice time, there’s really not much going on.
For most teams, that’s true. For Michigan State, it has the annual Moneyball Pro-Am which breaks up the offseason a little bit. It comes three months after the season ends and about 4-5 before the next season begins. It’s not the most thrilling basketball that you’ll ever see because defense is usually optional but it’s still a Pro-Am brimming with Spartan highlights. It’s exciting to see Spartans score 50 or 60 points in a game, but the stats need to be taken with a grain of salt because Trey Fort dominated last season and he barely got any minutes.
This year, there’s going to be an exciting crop of players representing Michigan State from an All-American point guard in Jeremy Fears to a five-star from the 2026 class in Jasiah Jervis.
This might be the most talented group of Spartans to partake in the Pro-Am in a decade.
On Friday, the teams were officially announced and there will be some interesting pairings.
Which Michigan State players will be paired together?
According to Jacob Cotsonika of SI, the pairings will be as follows:
BLT’s Wearable Art: Kaleb Glenn, Matthew Watkins (walk-on)
Motorcars: Carlos Medlock Jr., Anton Bonke
Tri-Star: Coen Carr, Jesse McCulloch
SPS: Jordan Scott, Julius Avent
LAFCU: Jeremy Fears Jr., Ethan Taylor
Faygo: Jasiah Jervis, Cam Ward
Also according to Cotsonika, there will be no Kur Teng or the walk-on Walton twins on any of the rosters. There’s been no public statement regarding injuries to any of them, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Teng is recovering from something and is just being held out for precuationary reasons.
We could still see Teng at some point.
The teams that I’m most excited about are Faygo with Jervis and Ward, LAFCU with Fears and Taylor, and Motorcars with Medlock and Bonke. Those three teams could be really fun to watch but don’t sleep on Tri-Star with Carr and McCulloch.
The event starts next week (June 24) and runs through July 31 with games being played every Tuesday and Thursday — outside of a short holiday break which means no games on June 30 or July 2.
You can just assume that you’ll be reading a lot of Moneyball content from me over the coming weeks.
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