The 2025-26 season was fairly kind to Kur Teng despite him losing his starting job before he could really get comfortable in it. Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo wasted no time making the switch to Divine Ugochukwu after trying Teng and Trey Fort out through the first few weeks.
Losing that starting job didn’t affect him too much but he had some shooting woes for a month between mid-December and January. Teng still turned in some good games even while he wasn’t shooting threes at the highest clip. He had a stretch where he went 8-for-28 from deep and he still score 10-plus in 3-of-5 games.
His sophomore season was impressive given the fact that he played just 2.9 minutes per game in 19 appearances as a true freshman. Teng also only shot 21.4% from the floor and 22.2% from three as a freshman, averaging 0.5 points per game.
That production skyrocketed as a sophomore, averaging 17.5 minutes and shooting 38.1% from three. Although he did shoot sub-38 percent from the floor, he gained confidence in his driving ability as the season went on.
If Teng can get shots up, that’s better for Michigan State. Realistically, he should be shooting around 10 shots per game because he can make around 40 percent of his threes. He is a critical piece to Michigan State’s title push puzzle next season.
What will Kur Teng’s role be in 2026-27?
I don’t necessarily see Teng starting at the shooting guard spot like he did at the beginning of the 2025-26 season, but he can be the Spartans’ backcourt sixth man.
Teng’s ability to draw defenders because of how much of a threat he is from deep actually really helps floor-spacing out. He’s not going to be left open too often with how well he shoots and Izzo actually called him Michigan State’s best shooter before the 2025-26 season.
If he can come off the bench to spell Jasiah Jervis or Jordan Scott for 5-10 minutes and hit a few threes, Michigan State is going to have the perfect shooting guard position rotation. Plus, I could see Scott playing more at the three which would give Teng more run at the two. That might actually be the best-case scenario for this lineup. Scott, in my opinion, is more of a small forward.
Teng will probably play around 15 minutes per game again, maybe up to 20, and he’ll improve his average by a point or two. I think his big season will be in his senior year. I do also believe that the backup shooting guard will shoot around 40 percent from three.
Add us as a preferred source on Google