The Moneyball Pro-Am is down to its final week, and a few Michigan State players made sure Week 4 left a mark.
Freshman point guard Carlos Medlock Jr. headlined the latest run of games even though he only played Tuesday. He went off for 48 points against Team SPS in a 99-95 overtime loss for Team Motorcars, and the big burst came in the first half when he caught fire and hit three or four threes in a row.
Through four appearances this summer, Medlock is averaging 32.8 points per game, which trails only Coen Carr’s 33.3 among Spartans. He’s also at 4.0 made threes per game, tied with Jeremy Fears Jr. for the team lead.
That production has made Medlock one of the event’s biggest winners. He’s been the most electric newcomer in the gym, and he’s given Michigan State fans a real glimpse of what the point guard future could look like in East Lansing.
His game is built on creativity and scoring touch, and he can get points at all three levels despite standing 5'11". He also gives MSU something different from Fears: a score-first guard with a different rhythm and skill set, which adds another layer for opponents to deal with.
The way he’s played, Tom Izzo may have a tough time keeping him on the bench except for the minutes that open up when Fears sits.
Matthew Watkins also kept turning heads. The former team manager, now a walk-on, has looked right at home this summer after Michigan State elevated him into the roster mix.
Watkins, from Perrysburg, Ohio, spent the past few seasons as a manager and had Division III offers coming out of high school, according to a recent article from Lucas Gentilia of The State News. This summer, he’s shown he can play with everybody else.
He’s averaging 18.0 points per game across seven games, and his last two outings were his best yet: 24 points Tuesday against Team LAFCU and 35 points Thursday against Team Tri-Star Trust.
The shot has been the biggest calling card for Watkins. He’s averaging 3.3 made threes per game this summer, and his 23 total makes are just one behind Fears for the team lead.
Against Team Tri-Star Trust, he buried nine threes in that 35-point performance, the most made threes in a game by anyone at Moneyball this summer. Nobody else has reached eight, and Cam Ward has the next-highest single-game total with seven.
Watkins probably won’t be part of Michigan State’s regular rotation, but his summer has made clear this is more than a nice story. He wasn’t even supposed to have a path to a walk-on spot, and he’s played like someone who earned every bit of it.
Carr, meanwhile, has kept doing Carr things. He led the event in scoring last year and is on top again this summer, with 200 total points in six games, the most in Moneyball so far.
There have been four 45-point performances up to this point, and Carr owns two of them. One came Thursday, when he scored 45 against Team BLT, which featured Kaleb Glenn and Watkins.
The other came Tuesday, when he put up 31 in an overtime game against Team Faygo.
His perimeter game also looks more confident. Carr is averaging 2.7 made threes per game, nearly matching last summer’s 2.8, but the shot looks smoother and more dependable now.
That matters. Last season was the first time he really started taking threes regularly, and he still hit just 27.6% while defenders often gave him space.
If that shot keeps trending up, it changes the math for Michigan State’s spacing and could help his draft stock, too.
In Other News...
Michigan State Fans Had One Big Reason To Watch Moneyball Again
Week 4 of Moneyball gave Michigan State fans a familiar kind of summer-night viewing, with former Spartans back in the mix and current ties to the program scattered across the event. Tre Holloman showed up in Team Faygo colors, Carson Cooper was there too, and Pierre Brooks also made an appearance, giving the local run a distinctly green-and-white feel even as the games kept moving and the spotlight shifted from one group to the next.
There was plenty else for Spartans fans to track, from strong showings by incoming freshmen to current players making their own noise in the action. But the real draw was the way the event kept pulling former Michigan State names back into the conversation, with Holloman on the floor and Cooper watching from the stands, leaving fans with one more reason to pay attention to what comes next at the local showcase. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan Just Watched A Top 2027 In-State Hoops Prospect Slip Away
Christian Casts rise has already made him one of the more closely watched in-state names for the Spartans, and now the Birmingham Detroit Country Day standout is taking a step that could reshape the next phase of his development. Cast, a highly ranked 2027 recruit with offers from Arizona, Penn State, Mississippi State, Michigan and Michigan State, is moving on from his current high school setup as he looks for a path that better fits both his academics and his basketball growth.
The transfer is tied in part to the flexibility he will get in the classroom, along with the chance to train in a tougher environment against better competition. For Michigan State, the timing only adds to the intrigue around a player already on its radar, because the Spartans have been among the programs keeping tabs as his recruitment builds and his next step becomes clearer. [Read more 🡒]
Why 5 Michigan State Transfers Could Define The Next Few Years
Michigan States offseason overhaul brought in 32 transfer players, and a handful of them look like the kind of additions that could shape the roster well beyond this fall. The group includes Marvis Parrish from Western Kentucky, Tyran Chappell from Houston Christian, Rhys Dakin from Iowa, Robert Wright Jr. from Georgia Southern and Trey Lisle from SEMO, each arriving with a different mix of experience, eligibility and immediate role. For a program coming off a coaching change, the point is not just plugging holes, but finding players who can grow with the roster as it settles in.
Parrish gives the Spartans a backfield piece with a long runway, while Chappell brings the kind of defensive production and size that can change how a secondary is built. Dakin steps into a special teams job with real expectations after his time at Iowa, and Wright arrives as a tackle whose path has already included a lost season but still leaves room for impact. Lisle is more of a projection, but that is part of the appeal here: Michigan State is betting that this transfer class can do more than fill out the depth chart, and the next few years will show which of these additions become core pieces. [Read more 🡒]