Michigan State doesn’t have to guess where its biggest problem is. The Spartans already know, and Dan Hurley put it plainly after UConn beat MSU at the Breslin Center last week.
“If their team could figure out the center thing, you know, and they’ve got three viable guys there that all bring different things,” Hurley said. “I think that once they get this center thing together, I think they’ve got one of the best teams in the country.”
That’s the whole story in a nutshell for a team ranked sixth in the preseason AP Poll. Michigan State looks strong almost everywhere else. The real question is the five spot, the one position that could decide whether this group becomes a true national title threat.
The Spartans already made that clear in the spring, when center became their only real transfer-portal need after losing Carson Cooper and Jaxon Kohler. They spent weeks looking around before landing on Anton Bonke as the answer.
So far, though, that answer hasn’t landed cleanly. Bonke struggled in 15 minutes against Incarnate Word, and while that was easy enough to shrug off, the next two exhibitions told a harsher story.
Against UConn, he sat the entire second half. At Marquette, he was dropped from the starting lineup, played just three minutes, and again spent the whole second half on the bench.
That’s a major wrinkle, because Bonke was brought in to start. He was supposed to be the guy in the middle, and Michigan State is not operating like a team that has found its fixed point there yet.
Instead, the Spartans are treating the frontcourt like a work in progress. They’re testing combinations, shifting minutes around, and trying to see what holds up.
Some of that is just exhibition season. But the lack of Bonke’s involvement is still impossible to miss.
The minutes that might have gone to him have been redirected mostly to Jesse McCulloch and Ethan Taylor. McCulloch does look better this year, but there’s a gap between “improved” and “ready to anchor a team chasing a national contender ceiling.”
Taylor, meanwhile, is the more intriguing long-term piece. He looks like the center with the highest ceiling for 2026-27, but he’s still raw in a lot of places, especially on offense. If Bonke ends up in a smaller role off the bench, Michigan State may have to lean heavily on Taylor much sooner than planned.
That comes with its own gamble, though there is precedent for young players making a sudden leap. Jase Richardson did it two years ago, and Jordan Scott did it last season. Taylor may need to follow that path if the Spartans are going to get where they want to go.
For now, the easiest escape hatch may be on the perimeter. Michigan State could have one of the nation’s best backcourt trios with Jeremy Fears Jr., Jasiah Jervis, and Scott. They were the starting guards at spots 1-3 at Marquette, and that group was one of the few things that looked right in that game.
Fears is the key piece here. Michigan State has seen stretches already where he has had to carry a lot of the load, and he’s good enough to keep the team afloat while the center situation sorts itself out.
The schedule also gives the Spartans a little room to breathe before the pressure ramps up. Their first two regular-season games are against Quinnipiac and Toledo, and Michigan State should have enough talent to handle both. KenPom gives the Spartans a 99.7% chance to beat Quinnipiac and a 98% chance against Toledo.
But that grace period won’t last long. Nov. 10 is the real checkpoint, when Michigan State faces second-ranked Duke.
The Blue Devils already have exhibition wins over No. 8 Tennessee and at No.
17 Kansas, and they’re more than capable of punishing MSU if the Spartans are still searching for answers in the middle.
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For a program looking to build momentum late, the timing of those performances matters. The awards are the last weekly accolades of the 2026 Big Ten cross country regular season, which gives Reese and Rohde a fitting snapshot of how quickly each has grown into the conference picture and leaves Michigan State with a pair of freshmen drawing attention just as the season turns toward its next stage. [Read more 🡒]