Despite all the success last season, Michigan State basketball struggled to shoot from deep. Tom Izzo thinks his big men can help fix that in 2025-26.
ROSEMONT, IL – Tom Izzo is looking for more 3-pointers this season from his Michigan State basketball team.
Never mind that his 2-guard position remains in flux, a three-man competition for minutes between transfer Trey Fort, sophomore Kur Teng and freshman Jordan Scott. The Spartans’ answers to their shooting woes from a year ago potentially could be solved from the inside out.
That's if the big men’s offseason development from behind the arc carries into competition.
Jaxon Kohler began to step out and take and make some 3-pointers last season. Over the summer, Carson Cooper started doing the same. Jesse McCulloch showed his shooting potential on MSU’s scout team last season.
And if Coen Carr translates the work he has put in to becoming a better shooter from long range, it could make the Spartans a more versatile scoring threat from the perimeter than last season’s Big Ten champion and Elite Eight squad. Even with losses at the guard spots.
“Honestly, it just makes us that much harder to guard when you know that you have five guys on the floor that can shoot it,” Kohler said at Big Ten media day Oct. 9. “It gives the (other team) not a lot of options on how to run the defense. When you have someone who can’t shoot or someone you can back off, it makes it easier on the defense. But when you have five guys who can drive it and kick out or might be a constant threat at the 3-point line – the scouting report says, ‘Don’t let this dude shoot’ – it just makes it that much harder.
“Then we can kind of play into our transition game a little bit, drive and kick, post up. I feel like we’re gonna have so many strengths this year, and shooting is gonna be a really big part of that.”
Despite going 30-7 and winning the Big Ten by three games last winter, MSU made 31.1% of its 3-point attempts. After the season ended, it lost nearly 82% of those makes and nearly 83% of the attempts from behind the arc with the departures of Jase Richardson to the NBA, Tre Holloman and Xavier Booker to transfer, and Jaden Akins and Frankie Fidler to graduation.
When the Moneyball Pro-Am League in Lansing got underway in July, Kohler showed the work he put in to try and stretch the floor. He shot 19-for-51 (37.3%) on 3-point tries last season, including 3-for-4 in the Spartans’ loss to Auburn in the Elite Eight and 4-for-5 in a road win at Illinois. The 6-foot-9 senior made 11-of-19 (57.9%) from the arc over MSU’s final 13 games.
Cooper only attempted one 3-pointer last season. But he took plenty in defense-lacking Moneyball games, generally not a great barometer of what to expect during the season. However, one of the earliest clips of the Spartans’ practices in September showed the 6-11 senior draining a trail 3 in transition, a sign he’s going to get a green light from Izzo.
“Jaxon was playing last year and was able to knock down big shots, too, so he kind of got a step on me,” Cooper said Thursday. “So I’m trying to get to that level now and figure that part out, because nowadays, that’s a huge part of that. But also, people could just sit in the paint on me when I would get the ball. It makes it really tough for me to get stuff done, but also it makes it easier for the entire team to defend when there’s a player that just sits in the paint.”
Izzo said he plans to play a bigger lineup more frequently this season, but needs both Kohler and Cooper to first assert themselves in the paint. However, he added Cooper is “capable of getting a 3 a game. And I’m fine with that.”
“Coop’s been shooting it really well. I’m expecting him to take a couple 3s and make a couple 3s this year,” point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. said Oct. 9. “Jaxon, if he gets open an open shot, I’m pretty confident that it’s good. And Jesse can make shots. So just the fact that all three of our big men can make open shots is a threat.
“And also, we can punch it in the post and pass it in, and they can make plays there. Inside-out 3s are high-percentage shots, so I expect us to be a much better 3-point shooting team than last year.”
Izzo added he feels the 6-10 McCulloch, who redshirted last season, “is a very good shooter – he might be the best 3-point shooter of the bunch (with Kohler and Cooper).”
“On the scout team, he was killing it. Everybody kills it on the scout team, because there’s no pressure,” Izzo said. “He was making 3s, hook shots, he was playing defense, good rebounder. But he’s a tough kid. A lot of big guys aren’t tough, especially as a freshman. He is.”
The high-flying, rim-running Carr didn’t take many outside shots last year, going 5-for-15 from deep. But the 6-6 wing said he put up “a lot of reps” to be able to force opposing defenders from sagging off him solely to prevent drives and dunks. And the junior also believes he will benefit from post players being threats from outside and freeing up congestion in the lane.
“It’s great for a big (defender) to not be to be sitting there waiting on me, because we got bigs that can shoot the ball now,” Carr said Thursday. “So me having that open paint, it’s gonna be good for sure.”
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Contact Chris Solari: [email protected]. Follow him @chrissolari.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball's Jaxon Kohler, Carson Cooper to hunt 3s
Category: General Sports
