Michigan State basketball has contacted Oakland transfer Trey Townsend

Tom Izzo is quickly proving all of the doubters wrong as he is once again being active in the transfer portal. Michigan State basketball definitely needs some help from the portal this offseason, and the Hall of Fame coach is doing everything he can to accomplish that and has just been publicly linked with his fourth transfer this offseason.

Oakland forward Trey Townsend is one of the hottest names in the transfer portal this offseason. Not only because he had an elite season averaging 17.3 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 3.1 assists per game, but it was the splash he made this postseason that really made him a hot name in the portal.

Townsend was at his best when Oakland made their magical run in the NCAA Tournament. In his two tournament games, he finished with two double-doubles which included 17 points against 3-seed Kentucky and a blistering 30 points in Oakland’s overtime loss to 11-seed NC State.

Townsend even carried his team to an NCAA Tournament berth in the Horizon League title game by scoring 38 points and grabbing 11 rebounds.

The Oakland forward would undoubtedly be a perfect fit at Michigan State. He would likely come right in and help fill the void left by Malik Hall. He also can create his own shot in late clock situations, which MSU will need more of next season with Tyson Walker now gone. Townsend immediately would become a starting-caliber player on this team, and Michigan State needs more players like that.

It’s unclear where Michigan State stands in his recruitment right now, but the competition to land Townsend will be plentiful.

Michigan, Tennessee, Arizona, UCLA, and Louisville are just a couple of other schools who have contacted Townsend as well. So this will be an extremely difficult recruitment to win.

The good sign for MSU is that they are in on other similar transfers to Townsend already. This includes Frankie Fidler who Michigan State is hosting on a visit this weekend. Fidler will also announce his commitment on Monday, so if he commits to Michigan State, missing on Townsend wouldn't hurt quite as much.

Michigan State is also in on J’Vonne Hadley, who just had an interesting development in his recruitment on Wednesday. This recruitment was seemingly all Iowa State, until the two crystal ball predictions in their favor were switched to undecided. The Spartans are the only other school to have conducted a Zoom meeting with Hadley, so things appear to be going well there as well.

I say all of this to say that Townsend is not a "must-get" transfer.

Don’t get me wrong, he would be a huge addition to the program, but getting any one of the three transfers I mentioned would be a win. But you never know what will happen in recruiting, so Izzo needs to pursue Townsend as hard as he can until the Spartans earn a commitment from one of their targets.