New 5-star target talks Michigan State basketball

Michigan State basketball is in the thick of it with many elite 2025 recruits across the country. The Spartans have seen positive updates with 10 different highly ranked recruits all within the past few weeks.

With all the excitement in the recruiting world with the 2025 class it’s hard to remember that Tom Izzo and his staff still need to begin putting in work with the 2026 class. Thankfully Izzo has that covered as Michigan State is heavily pursuing a new top-10 recruit in the 2026 class.

According to 24/7 High School Hoops, Michigan State is one of the four schools reaching out and pursuing five-star guard Jordan Smith the most. Smith, according to 247Sports, is the No. 8 player in the entire country. He also is the No. 3 guard in his class as well as the top-ranked player from Virginia.

This recruitment is going to be a battle because the other three schools Smith is hearing the most from are Duke, Louisville, and Kansas. On top of that, Duke reportedly has an upcoming visit with Smith already scheduled whereas Michigan State does not have one yet.

But it is still a big deal hearing how much Izzo is targeting Smith this early on. Recruits tend to favor those programs that are involved early in their recruitment, so this sets Michigan State up very well if a new school tries to get involved later in his recruiting process.

The bad news for Michigan State is that they usually don’t have much success going up against Duke and Kansas in recruitment. Add in the fact that Duke seems to be a step ahead with an upcoming visit as well and it’s not looking that great early.

But it’s still very early in Smith’s recruitment and you never know what’s going to happen. If Izzo can match Duke’s visit with one of his own then that would tell us that MSU is at the top of Smith’s list right now as well. So hopefully we hear that news very soon.