Michigan State basketball is underway now that the entire team has made its way to campus. Everyone welcomed Anton Bonke, Carlos Medlock Jr., Julius Avent, Jasiah Jervis, and Ethan Taylor to campus over the past week, or so, and that means offseason conditioning is back.
We’ll soon see pictures shared by the official MSU basketball account of the team smiling, laughing, and having a good time up at Tom Izzo’s beach house, but before that can happen, there’s some business to take care of. The team has to start gelling now so it can cut down the nets next March.
The team got back to work this week after the newcomers made it to campus and Jeremy Fears returned from his NBA draft excursion.
On Thursday, the Spartans’ official Twitter account shared an 80-second scrimmage clip from earlier this week and while it was less than two minutes long, fans had no shortage of takeaways.
Watch for yourself:
Week 1 underway 🏀 pic.twitter.com/lFyEPUjzUP
— Michigan State Men's Basketball (@MSU_Basketball) June 18, 2026
Since everyone is giving their surely-not-overreactionary takes on an 80-second clip in the middle of June, I thought I’d share mine, too.
Quick takeaways from Michigan State’s scrimmage clip
Let’s start things off with the obvious: I’d like to see more defensive clips. I get that a good stop or suffocating defense that leads to an ugly shot won’t get views, but maybe adding in a block or a steal that talks the fans who are already down on the center position off the ledge.
This 80-second clip unfortunately gave those fans a little more fuel with Taylor, Bonke, and Jesse McCulloch all getting beat for buckets.
Now that the boring part is out of the way, let’s get into the fun stuff. Here’s what I took away from the lesson-than-90-second clip that I’m going to treat like game film:
- The freshmen got caught guarding a lot with their hands. In particular, Taylor gave McCulloch a ton of room to get a good first move to back him down because of the arm defense and it led to a pretty easy bucket for the sophomore big man. It’s probably just a relaxed scrimmage vibe, but the arm defense won’t work in the post. Boring take, I promise the rest are fun.
- Kaleb Glenn may be the third member of Michigan State’s “Big 3”. He looked like a dude in these clips and scored with ease. He also has that Big Ten forward body that should be tough to guard. Glenn looks explosive and can score at all three levels. Exciting player.
- Carlos Medlock Jr. is going to be hard to keep on the bench. He was also more explosive against Big Ten competition than I was expecting. If he can shoot 30-40 percent from three, he’ll be a major plus because he’s clearly crafty enough to get to the rim. He’s going to be a fan favorite. MSU has a really good point guard duo for the first time in a long time.
- Jesse McCulloch post move. That’s all. Love to see it.
- Anton Bonke is being used just like Carson Cooper. It’s a very short clip, but he was at the top of the key with the offense running through him in a couple of clips. The Spartans used Cooper the same way with him with the ball at the top and several options at his disposal. The difference? Michigan State has more weapons this year.
- Coen Carr bucket creation is a thing. It was nice to see him take the ball from 30 feet out, get by his defender, juke another, and score at the rim. He’s adding to his bag. If he keeps this up, he’s an NBA player.
- Not enough good center highlights. Self-explanatory.
- Still a huge Cam Ward guy. He wasn’t a star in this highlight, but he’s going to make a lot of plays like the one he did make with the drive to the hoop. Breakout candidate.
- No Kur Teng? Not sure I saw him in any of the clips and there were rumors of a potential spotting of him in a walking boot in the spring so maybe he’s on the mend? Not sure how true the rumors were, but maybe this was just an unlucky stretch of clips or maybe it’s precautionary.
OK, I think I rambled long enough about an 80-second clip. You may go on with your day.
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