Michigan State’s offseason frontcourt uncertainty could have taken a very different turn if Carson Cooper had decided to chase one more year in East Lansing.
Instead, the former Spartan big man passed on the fifth-year idea and, in the process, gave Tom Izzo a story that says a lot about both men.
Right after the season ended, Michigan State fans were already bracing for life without Jaxon Kohler and Cooper, and the projected 2026-27 frontcourt wasn’t exactly calming anybody down. With the starting frontcourt from a 27-win team gone, the talk naturally drifted toward the transfer portal and whatever else Izzo might have up his sleeve. Then Cooper surfaced as an unexpected possibility.
On Matt Sheehan’s Locked On Spartans podcast, Cooper was asked - almost as a joke - whether he’d be interested in coming back for a fifth season. He answered plainly that he’d be open to it and had already talked with the coaching staff about the idea.
But that didn’t lead anywhere, and Izzo later made it clear that he was willing to explore the option if Cooper truly wanted it.
The twist is that Cooper was the one who shut the door.
Izzo described their conversation about a fifth year, and according to the coach, Cooper told him: “Those guys i played in front of they deserve to have their chance”
That line tells you everything about how Cooper handled the moment. He had a chance to return, but he chose not to block the path for teammates who had earned their shot. Cooper later put it this way: “Those other guys that I played in front of, they deserve to have their chance.”
That kind of answer doesn’t come around often, especially from a player who didn’t have pro certainty sitting in front of him.
And Cooper’s decision ended up looking pretty smart, too. He said his dream was being fulfilled if he played well enough over the summer, and that turned out to be true when he signed a two-way contract with the Memphis Grizzlies before Summer League even began.
In a lot of ways, Cooper was built for Izzo’s program. He arrived at Michigan State as a zero-star recruit from IMG Academy’s B-team, then climbed from overlooked project to dependable rotation piece.
As a sophomore, he was already giving the Spartans 17 minutes a night. By his senior season, he had become a starter and made a major leap, finishing with 11.1 points and 7.1 rebounds per game.
Izzo never recruited over him, and Cooper’s growth came the hard way, through patience and work. Izzo did add Szymon Zapala through the transfer portal, but Cooper wasn’t ready to start then, so the move didn’t really change his role.
That’s why the fifth-year decision fits the story so well. Cooper had every reason to keep the door open, yet he still chose the selfless route and left the openings for the next guys.
For Izzo, it was another reminder that his approach has a way of showing up in the players who spend enough time around him.
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For Tom Izzo, who has long been vocal about professional athletes finding ways to exploit loopholes, the decision reads like a win for a position he has argued for publicly. The bigger question now is whether the conference will widen that approach beyond football, with basketball among the sports under consideration, which would make the ripple effect on college athletics even more significant. [Read more 🡒]