Lansing State Journal columnist Graham Couch reacts with three quick takes, after Farmington guard Jaden Akins committed to Michigan State basketball on Thursday:
1. In Jaden Akins, MSU emphatically completes its summer recruiting haul
Rarely — check that — Never does recruiting come together like this. Not for Tom Izzo and Michigan State, which have lured their share of McDonald’s All-Americans and top-five classes over the years.
MSU has never before landed five top-100 recruits in the same offseason. A five that, positionally speaking, could play together. A five that includes a previously elusive transcendent talent in Emoni Bates, a five-star Chicago-area shooting guard in Max Christie whose game gives MSU’s coaches goosebumps, a gifted Canadian big man in Enoch Boakye, and a versatile and imposing wing from Detroit in Pierre Brooks II, who committed last spring, and now a rangy and quickly 6-foot-3, four-star point guard out of Farmington in Jaden Akins, who committed Thursday afternoon.