Mike Boynton Jr. hasn’t wasted much time making noise in Ann Arbor.
Just days after Michigan dropped the interim label and made Boynton its permanent head basketball coach, the Wolverines extended an offer to Michigan State’s top recruiting target in the 2028 class: Mateen Cleaves Jr.
Cleaves Jr. carries a name that means plenty in East Lansing. He’s the son of Michigan State legend and national champion Mateen Cleaves, and he’s been near the top of Tom Izzo’s wish list for a while now.
Izzo has known him since he was younger, and that familiarity has kept the Spartans firmly in the mix. Still, Cleaves Jr. is keeping his options open as one of the top recruits in the 2028 class.
Michigan State looks like the favorite, but Michigan’s offer made the chase a little more interesting.
The reaction was immediate. A scholarship announcement from Cleaves Jr. on Instagram drew Michigan players posting memes, while Spartans such as Jeremy Fears Jr. and Malik Hall laughed at the idea of him wearing maize and blue simply because of his father.
Mateen Cleaves is widely considered the best point guard to ever play for Izzo, and the respect between the two runs deep. In fact, Tom Izzo even gave his son Steven the middle name “Mateen”.
Still, the idea of a Cleaves playing for Michigan feels like a long shot, especially with Boynton’s situation in Ann Arbor. He’s viewed as a players coach, but he’s also signed for just two years and could end up as more of a bridge than a long-term answer unless he finds unexpected success.
That said, Michigan isn’t going to make this easy for the Spartans.
Cleaves Jr. may be Michigan State’s No. 1 target, but the Wolverines aren’t likely to just step aside. And Michigan isn’t the only major program circling, either.
247Sports currently lists only three offers for the elite point guard, who is playing his prep ball in Arizona: Michigan State, Rutgers, and now Michigan. That number should climb soon, with blue bloods expected to join the pursuit.
Michigan may not be the likely landing spot, but it’s still a top-tier program, and the Wolverines now have Trey McKenney on the roster - a player Cleaves Jr. knows. Boynton is taking on an uphill battle here, but the move definitely has a little edge to it.
For now, the Spartans still seem to have the inside track. But Michigan has made sure this recruitment won’t be a quiet one.
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The case has revived the old double-standard conversation because the Wolverines punishment history now sits alongside fresh allegations about what university leadership knew and when they knew it. Michigan State supporters have seen their own program absorb the consequences of NCAA enforcement before, so every new development in Ann Arbor tends to invite comparison, and this one does so with a few unresolved questions still hanging over the story. [Read more 🡒]
One Incoming Spartan Faces A Different Path In Izzos Class
Michigan States incoming group is built with purpose, and the fit is easy to see in most of the class. Ethan Taylor and Anton Bonke give the Spartans the center help they needed, while Jasiah Jervis and Julius Avent bring a wing combination that should balance inside pressure with perimeter spacing. Even with four freshmen and a transfer coming in, this is a class designed less around star power than around pieces that can help each other settle in quickly.
Carlos Medlock Jr., though, comes with a different kind of path. He does not arrive with an obvious recruiting twin in the class, which makes his development feel a little more individual than the rest of the group, but that also opens the door for him to learn from established guards already in the program. Jeremy Fears Jr. looms as the natural veteran model in that regard, and how Medlock grows into that role will be one of the quieter storylines to watch once the newcomers get to East Lansing. [Read more 🡒]
Pat Fitzgerald May Already Have A Few Surprise Answers On Campus
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Taplins rise was especially notable because he was getting first-team work at receiver by the end of spring, while Shaw spent plenty of time in the scrimmage working mostly with the second group after arriving as an early enrollee. Hazelwood looks like the kind of interior piece who can find a role in the line rotation, and Whiting is part of an unsettled tight end picture that still needs someone to separate. Thrush, meanwhile, has already made a physical jump that suggests the staff sees more than a developmental body, which is exactly the sort of internal progress Michigan State needs while it waits to see which of these surprise answers can hold up once the real competition starts. [Read more 🡒]