Michigan State basketball looking like favorite to land Jesse McCulloch

Announcing his decision date just one day after Michigan State basketball landed Kur Teng, Jesse McCulloch looks like a Spartan.

Four-star center prospect Jesse McCulloch has quickly become one of Tom Izzo’s top remaining targets for Michigan State basketball in the 2024 recruiting cycle.

The 6-foot-9 big man from Cleveland, Ohio, was originally offered by Michigan State back in July of 2022, but the recruitment took a bit of a back seat. It now feels like that’s no longer the case as he’s making a decision on April 20.

Most experts believe Izzo could look to add two players to its front court rotation in 2024. It’s no secret that Izzo has been really interested in five-star center Flory Bidunga and still continues to be. He was most recently seen at a game of his and has been upping the recruiting efforts since the tournament ended. Aside from him, Izzo had also reached out to fringe five-star James Brown from Chicago. Unfortunately, he lost out to North Carolina in that race.

With Brown off the board, the recruitment of McCulloch started heating up.

McCulloch is more of the typical big man you see here at MSU. He’s smaller, at 6-foot-9, and can stretch the floor at both ends. He may end up playing more of a power forward type role, but can also play center and does it well.

Landing McCulloch would give coach Izzo some flexibility down low in the future. Mady Sissoko will have two more years of eligibility. With Jaxon Kohler and Carson Cooper still around, it would be nice to have players that could move between the power forward and center spots and stay effective.

Currently, 247Sports has McCulloch as the No. 86 player in the 2024 class and the No. 15 center. He holds 18 offers currently from schools including MSU, Alabama, Indiana, and Ohio State. His final four schools were released on Tuesday along with his commitment date of April 20, confirmed by On3’s national recruiting expert, Joe Tipton. The final schools he will chose from are Michigan State, Xavier, Virginia Tech, and Alabama.

The race is presumably down to MSU and Alabama seeing those schools are two he took official visits to.

The timing of this announcement certainly bodes well if you are an MSU fan. McCulloch just wrapped up his high school season by winning a state championship for Lutheran East. Before the playoffs, McCulloch visited East Lansing on March 3 and was rather impressed with it. Even his parents were quick to point out that the family atmosphere in East Lansing was great. Two of MSU’s 2023 signees in Jeremy Fears and Xavier Booker have been actively recruiting him on Instagram as well.

Because MSU was just able to pick up its first 2024 commitment from four-star shooting guard Kur Teng on Monday, it is interesting McCulloch decided to announce his decision date a day later. Lots of speculation is swirling but we see this often as classes start to take shape and recruits want to assure themselves a spot on a potential roster since some schools may only take 3-4 recruits a cycle.

Pairing all this information with the fact that there have been three crystal balls placed for MSU in regards to McCulloch on 247Sports, you have to feel like Jesse is about to become the second domino to fall in the 2024 class for Izzo.

Spartan Nation will want to be following this one closely as Tom is working on yet another impressive recruiting class.