Michigan State Men’s Basketball Opens Exhibition Season on Friday, Hosting Incarnate Word for Izzone Campout Game

Friday, October 2

East Lansing, Mich.

7PM

Michigan State University

Incarnate Word

Photo by: Matthew Mitchell Photography

Michigan State Men’s Basketball Opens Exhibition Season on Friday, Hosting Incarnate Word for Izzone Campout Game

10/1/2026 6:11:00 PM | Men's Basketball

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Michigan State's men's basketball team plays the first of three exhibition games on Friday, Oct. 2, hosting the University of the Incarnate Word at the Breslin Center for the Izzone Campout Game (7 p.m.).

The game will tip off at 7 p.m. and will air live on B1G+, with Charlie Schmidgall, Matt Guziewicz and Jessica Kemnitz calling all of the action.

Michigan State's women's basketball team will be introduced to the crowd at halftime of the men's game.

About the Spartans

Michigan State finished the 2025-26 season with a 27-8 overall record, including a 15-5 mark in the Big Ten Conference to tie for second place.
The Spartans were selected to the NCAA Tournament for the 28th-straight season and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament for the second-straight year and the 17th time under Head Coach Tom Izzo, finishing the year ranked No. 11 in the Associated Press Top 25.
Izzo enters his 32nd season at the helm of the program he has been with for more than 40 years, including his time as an assistant coach.
The Spartans will look to replace six letterwinners, including two starting post players in center Carson Cooper (11.1 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 26.8 mpg) and forward Jaxon Kohler, an All-Big Ten Honorable Mention selection by the league's coaches (12.5 ppg, 8.9 rpg, team-best 58 3-pointers made).
The cupboard is not bare, by any stretch, as the team welcomes back two players who started every game last year – senior point guard Jeremy Fears Jr., an All-Big Ten First Team selection who earned five different All-American honors last year, and senior forward Coen Carr (12.0 ppg, 5.4 rpg) – as well as a talented group of returning players and newcomers.
Fears was named the Preseason National Player of the Year by Blue Ribbon College Basketball in September.
Last year, he was one of 10 players selected to the John R. Wooden Award® All-America Team and earned five All-American honors, being named a Second Team All-American by the Associated Press and third team honors from The Sporting News, the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) and the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC).
An All-Big Ten First Team selection, Fears led the team in scoring with 15.2 points per game (No. 17 in the Big Ten) and in assists, with 9.4 per game, which not only ranked first in the Big Ten but was No. 1 in the country.
Carr, who started all 35 games, was third on the team in scoring (12.0 ppg) and rebounding (5.4) and second in minutes played (29.2).
Sophomore forward Jordan Scott started the final 13 games of the season, averaging 5.8 ppg and 3.1 rpg in 20.8 mpg, while junior guard Kur Teng was fifth on the team with 7.3 ppg and 2.0 rpg in 17.4 mpg.

MSU Adds Transfer

Graduate center Anton Bonke comes to East Lansing after one year at Charlotte.
The 7-2, 270-pound center averaged 10.6 ppg and 8.3 rpg while starting 32 of 34 games (25.6 mpg).
Spent his sophomore season in the Big East at Providence College, appearing in 16 games off the bench for the Friars, with one start … He began his career at the junior college level, averaging 9.8 points and 5.8 rebounds at Eastern Arizona College.
Grew up on the island of Efate in Port-Vila and speaks Bislama ... A self-taught basketball player who learned the fundamentals of the game watching online videos … He relocated to Davis, Calif. to train and played pickup at local rec centers before connecting with Eastern Arizona.
Bonke is an accomplished international multi-sport athlete who competed in open-water swimming and elite rowing, winning back-to-back gold medals at the Oceania Indoor Rowing Championships and representing Vanuatu at the 2022 World Rowing Junior Championships.

Four Newcomers Make Up Freshman Class

All four of the first-year players – forward Julius Avent, guard Jasiah Jervis, guard Carlos Medlock Jr. and center Ethan Taylor – were ranked among the top-100 players in the country nationally by 247Sports, a class rated No. 15 nationally.
A four-star recruit (No. 34 nationally) out of Archbishop Stepinac, Jervis was named the 2026 New York Gatorade Player of the Year after averaging 17.4 points last season ... He hit 38 percent of his 3-point shots across high school career.
Center Ethan Taylor (7-2, 260) was ranked No. 42 nationally by 247 Sports and was teammates with Jervis on the USA Basketball U18 team that won a sliver medal at the 2026 FIBA U18 Men's AmeriCup ... Taylor, who has a 7-3 wingspan, was a two-time all-state honorable mention and three-time all-conference selection in Kansas.
Medlock, ranked No. 48 by 247 Sports, averaged 16.9 ppg and 3.1 assists at Link Academy (Mo.), where he was teammates with Taylor.
Avent, the son of former Seton Hall standout Anthony Avent, was ranked No. 89 nationally by 247Sports and was a Second Team All-Non Public School selection in New Jersey ... He averaged 14.3 ppg and helped lead Bergen Catholic to a 27-5 record and the 2025 state title.

Brotherly Love

When the Spartans meet the Cardinals in the exhibition game on Friday night at the Breslin Center, it will feature a head-to-head matchup of brothers.
MSU associate head coach Doug Wojcik helped set the game up with his younger brother, Dave, who is the associate head coach at Incarnate Word.
Natives of Wheeling, West Virginia, Doug and Dave Wojcik both played high school basketball at Wheeling Catholic Central under the late Skip Prosser, who was the head coach at Loyola (Md.), Xavier and Wake Forest before passing away in 2007.
Dave Wojcik is a graduate of Loyola (Md.) and was assistant to Prosser in 1933-94 and has been an assistant at James Madison, Navy, Dayton, Wake Forest, Boise State and at Tulsa from 2005-08, working on a staff with his brother as the head coach … He was also the head coach at San Jose State from 2013-17, then spent six years at a private school in West Virginia before returning to the college ranks at Incarnate Word.

Michigan State Exhibition History

The Spartans are playing three exhibition games this year, including the game on Friday night against Incarnate Word, out of the Southland Conference.
MSU will host UConn on Tuesday, Oct. 20 before playing at Marquette on Sunday, Oct. 25.
Last year, the Spartans played a pair of Division I schools in exhibition games … MSU beat Bowling Green, 75-66, on Oct. 23, with Coen Carr scoring 17 points and Jeremy Fears Jr. adding 12 points and nine assists … The second game was a 76-69 loss at UConn, with Fears scoring 14 points and handing out six assists.
In recent years, Michigan State has primarily played in-state Division II or III schools, with contests against 10 different schools from the state of Michigan.
The Spartans hosted Tennessee at the Breslin Center in a charity exhibition, an 89-88 loss, ahead of the start of the 2023-24 season.
MSU has played closed scrimmages against Gonzaga (2018-19) and at Tennessee (2022).
Two years, MSU beat Ferris State at the Breslin Center, 85-67, and posted a 70-53 win over Northern Michigan in the Superior Dome Showdown in the Upper Peninsula … The game at Northern Michigan marked the first time that MSU Head Coach Tom Izzo coached the Spartans in a game at his alma mater and NMU retired Izzo's jersey number during the weekend.

About the Cardinals

Incarnate Word is coming off a 2025-26 season that saw the Cardinals post a 12-19 overall record, including a 7-15 mark in the Southland Conference.
The Cardinals were picked to finish ninth in the 12-team Southland.
Coming from San Antonio Texas, the Cardinals are led by fourth-year head coach Shane Heirman … Heirman previously spent time as an assistant coach at Central Michigan and DePaul … Before the college level, he was the head coach at the La Lumiere School in LaPorte, Ind., where he guided the school to an 82-7 record in three years and coached future Spartan Jaren Jackson Jr., among other future Division I and professional players.
A native of Illinois, Heirman played collegiately at Tulsa from 2008-11 under then head coach Doug Wojcik.
The Cardinal roster featured massive turnover from the 2025-26 season, with just one returning player, junior guard Drew Barbee, who averaged 2.2 points and 1.8 rebounds in just over five minutes per game.
Among the transfers are junior guard Mekhi Conner, who averaged 7.6 points, 3.4 rebounds and 6.3 assists while at Sacred Heart in Connecticut … He led the Metro Conference in assists last year.
Senior Brandon McCreesh, a native of New York City, spent the last three years at Bucknell in the Patriot League … He averaged 7.4 points and 3.1 rebounds while shooting 37.5 percent from 3-point land … McCreesh started the first eight games in 2025-26 before being sidelined by an injury.
Sophomore forward D'Aarrae Goodwin averaged 4.3 points and 2.3 rebounds at San Deigo and played high school basketball in West Virginia under associate head coach Dave Wojcik.
Junior forward Godswill Erheriene, a native of Nigeria who played at Long Island Lutheran in New York in school, spent two seasons at Seton Hall (0.8 ppg, 0.7 rpg).
Junior guard Jayden Thomas averaged 25.6 points, 7.1 rebounds and 5.5 assists for DeSales University, a Division III school in Pennsylvania whose sports information staff includes former MSU sports information student worker Kendall Brach.