{"id":18012,"date":"2024-05-14T13:52:54","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T17:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=18012"},"modified":"2024-05-14T13:52:54","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T17:52:54","slug":"michigan-state-basketball-news-transfer-center-szymon-zapala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=18012","title":{"rendered":"Michigan State basketball lands transfer center Szymon Zapala"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Michigan State basketball has officially landed a transfer center as Longwood&#8217;s Szymon Zapala committed on Tuesday.<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/michigan-state-basketball-is-this-really-what-die-trying-looks-like\/\">Michigan State basketball<\/a> wanted a transfer center and on Tuesday, they got one.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Thrilled to announce my commitment to Michigan State University! Proud to be a Spartan! Let\u2019s get to work! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/LkRyAHw305\">pic.twitter.com\/LkRyAHw305<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Szymon Zapala (@szymon_zapala) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/szymon_zapala\/status\/1790436785597649037?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 14, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>After being rumored as the frontrunners for Szymon Zapala on Monday, the Spartans landed the 7-footer from Longwood on Tuesday afternoon. He is the final piece to the 2024-25 roster and while he&#8217;s not a superstar, he&#8217;ll add some depth to the center position.<\/p>\n<p>Tom Izzo has now added a three-man class of Jase Richardson, Kur Teng, and Jesse McCulloch along with Frankie Fidler and Zapala from the transfer portal. Five new players on next year&#8217;s squad should make for some interesting rotations, but there are plenty of fans remaining optimistic. Although the center add is a bit underwhelming, he&#8217;s going to add some depth behind Carson Cooper and Jaxon Kohler.<\/p>\n<p>What this means is that Kohler is going to have to take a major step in the right direction and be that go-to scorer down low while also improving his defense drastically. Cooper will have to be a much better backup option than he was this past season on the offensive end.<\/p>\n<p>Zapala played 16.7 minutes per game this past season for Longwood after transferring over from Utah State where he couldn&#8217;t crack the playing rotation. He averaged 9.8 points and 5.6 rebounds per game while shooting 63 percent from the floor. At least he has a back-to-the-basket game that is better than most of what we saw this past season &#8212; but it was Big South competition.<\/p>\n<p>Size is added to the room and he&#8217;ll at least be a big enough body to guard opposing 7-footers in Big Ten play. That 7-foot-0, 240-pound frame is exactly what Izzo wanted in the portal from his backup center and he got it.<\/p>\n<p>Is this move going to make Michigan State basketball a national title contender? No, but it adds depth at a position of need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At least there&#8217;s some center depth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187,424],"tags":[59,190,189,504,778],"class_list":["post-18012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-transfer-portal","tag-featured","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-news","tag-szymon-zapala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}