Michigan State’s 2027 recruiting board is already starting to come into focus, and the early theme is clear: the Spartans are hunting point guards.
Tom Izzo and his staff have extended offers to a pair of blue-chip floor generals in recent days. Joshua Tyson got his MSU offer on June 29, while Jaxson Davis picked up his on Saturday, July 4. Both are high-end 4-star prospects, with Davis sitting 45th overall on the 247Sports Composite and Tyson ranked 65th.
That makes sense for a program that may soon need another lead guard in the pipeline. Jeremy Fears Jr. still has another season of eligibility left, but this offseason made it feel like he was closer to the NBA than many expected. At this point, the odds of Fears still being in East Lansing for 2027-28 feel well below 50%.
Davis has been on Michigan State’s radar for a while, even if the formal offer only came on Independence Day. The 6-foot guard has already drawn attention from Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Purdue and other high-major programs. He’s from Gurnee, Ill., though he’s now at Monarch Academy in Kansas City, and his composite score of .9828 is nearly identical to incoming freshman Carlos Medlock Jr.’s .9823.
That kind of backcourt talent is exactly the sort of thing Izzo has always leaned on when talking about his best teams. If MSU can land Davis or Tyson, it would go a long way toward keeping that tradition alive.
Tyson’s path is worth watching, too. The West Chester, Ohio native recently moved from Lakota West High School to La Lumiere School in Indiana, and that matters for Michigan State.
La Lumiere has become a familiar stop for Izzo and the Spartans, with Fears spending his senior year there and Jaren Jackson Jr. also coming through the program. Plenty of other MSU targets and players have gone that route as well.
Kingston Thomas is also headed to La Lumiere. The East Lansing native was Michigan State’s first 2027 offer, and he’s now been bumped up to 4-star status. He’s currently ranked 143rd overall.
The bigger picture is that MSU appears to have a plan in place for the day Fears moves on. Medlock said at the Moneyball Pro-Am that he was glad Fears stayed so he could learn from him for a season, and that comment fit the moment. Izzo’s recent recruiting push suggests he’s operating as if Fears could be headed to the NBA next offseason.
There’s no reason to think this is just a precautionary move, either. If Izzo believed Fears was likely to be around for 2027-28, there wouldn’t be much reason to load up on point guards this early.
Medlock’s Moneyball debut also turned heads. He looked good enough to raise the question of whether he’ll be more than just a backup option when Fears rests.
If that’s the case, his minutes could wind up being limited to around 10 per game, if that. His defense will be a key thing to watch once practices start in September, but he didn’t look like a player destined to sit on the floor for only a few minutes a night.
And the recruiting approach says something else, too: Izzo doesn’t seem to be planning around the end of the Fears era as if it means a reset. Fears recently said on a podcast that he doesn’t think Izzo "will be here for a while," and that there isn’t any desire to step away from college basketball yet. Fears may end up being the defining player of Michigan State’s 2020s, but Izzo is already looking past him.
That forward-thinking stance lines up with where the program is right now. MSU is winning again and trending upward, and Izzo has made it clear he still has time left.
His players are saying the same thing. The recruiting board is just another sign that Michigan State is planning for what comes next.
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