Michigan State basketball hires former Michigan coach Saddi Washington

Michigan State basketball has had an open assistant coach position for a few months now after Mark Montgomery became the new head coach at Detroit Mercy. Tom Izzo said he was going to take his time making this hire, and that he did.

But on Thursday, the newest Spartan coach was announced and this is a hire I absolutely love.

Saddi Washington comes to Michigan State after an eight-year stint at Michigan. There he found a lot of success under both John Beilein and Juwan Howard where he was once named 247Sports Recruiter of the Year.

Before his time at Michigan, Washington spent 10 seasons at Oakland with Greg Kampe, who is a close friend of Izzo's.

Washington was one of my top choices to be the next assistant at Michigan State and this is nothing short of an excellent hire by Izzo. Washington brings a lot of youth to the staff that I think MSU needed desperately. With that youth comes fresh ideas that will hopefully spark the Spartans out of the rut they’ve been in the last few seasons. Washington also is as good of a recruiter as anyone in the country, and that’s obviously never a bad thing to have.

Washington is also originally from Lansing and is the son of former Spartan great Stan Washington. So while he may have been at Michigan for awhile, I have a feeling his heart has always been with Michigan State.

The newest assistant has a lot of work to do once he officially gets to campus as the Spartans' 2025 recruiting class is still empty. But I imagine the impact of this hire will be felt immediately, and this could very well help propel Michigan State back to the top of the Big Ten.