The Michigan St. Spartans are one of five teams in the running to land top basketball recruit Jabari Parker. They share the honor with Duke, Brigham Young, Florida and Stanford. According to Diamond Leung of MLive.com, Parker is set to take a scheduled visit to MSU's campus next weekend (Oct. 20-21).
Parker graced the cover of Sports Illustrated recently, and at 6'8, he's highly sought-after. The Spartans recently lost out on Rochester High School guard James Young, who has committed elsewhere as of Thursday. The 2013 class isn't coming together at this point, and it's frustrating for coach Tom Izzo.
"With the recruiting process it's been a little tougher, and as you know, there's no commitments yet because I think we're in on the right guys and got some work to do here the next few weeks," Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said Tuesday. "Is that one of the reasons I'm in a better mood? I don't think so, because recruiting, the problem is if you finish second you might as well have been 42nd. I like the job my staff has done."
That's definitely a good point: losing out on a recruit is losing out on a recruit, no matter if you made it to their final five or not. Parker is a huge prospect and landing him would instantly validate the 2013 recruiting class for the Spartans, regardless of who else is really brought in at this point.