Tyson Walker’s decision to return to Michigan State for one more year has fans, and teammates, thinking Final Four.
The excitement of returning your best player for one more season cannot be understated. Fans start talking crazy about sky-high expectations and teammates start floating wild predictions. So when Tyson Walker announced his return on Monday, that exact situation happened.
Michigan State fans were talking about a national title in 2024 while teammates had major goals on the mind. Some of them even put them out there in the atmosphere.
Carson Cooper wasn’t shying away from telling everyone how he felt about Walker’s announcement.
He added the announcement post from Walker to his Instagram story and captioned it “Phoenix 2024” with a clock emoji while tagging Tyson. In case you don’t get the reference, he’s talking about the 2024 Final Four that will be in Phoenix.
![Tyson Walker](http://spartanshadows.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Screenshot-2023-04-11-at-4.48.36-AM-579x1024.png)
Carson Cooper’s Instagram
You just love to see the confidence.
With the return of Tyson Walker, the players know that there’s going to be added pressure to live up to lofty expectations much like the Spartans had before the 2017-18 season when Miles Bridges returned. Unfortunately, that season ended early because of Syracuse, but this team is hoping for better luck and the guard play on this team is deeper.
The whole team is fairly deep actually, especially with Cooper improving throughout the year.
Cooper had a solid freshman season with the Spartans, coming on late in the season and in the NCAA Tournament as a legit role player in the post. He was the primary backup to Mady Sissoko in the NCAA Tournament and many believe that his ceiling is really high for a late addition in the 2022 recruiting class.
If Cooper continues to improve along with fellow second-year classmate Jaxon Kohler, Mady Sissoko, and Xavier Booker, Michigan State’s post play will be good enough to keep up with the guards and send this team to Phoenix in 2024.
We all now have Phoenix 2024 on the mind.