{"id":78802,"date":"2025-08-13T04:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T04:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/78802\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T04:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T04:16:09","slug":"michigan-state-spartans-offer-scholarship-to-top-recruit-son-of-basketball-program-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/78802\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan State Spartans offer scholarship to top recruit son of basketball program legend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want to feel old?<\/p>\n

Michigan State just offered a basketball scholarship to Mateen Cleaves Jr.<\/p>\n

That news, broken by Rivals<\/a> on Tuesday, is a big deal. Cleaves is regarded as a top-end guard recruit in the Class of 2028.<\/p>\n

Just entering his sophomore season of high school, Cleaves will get a heck of a lot more offers. But will any match his father’s school?<\/p>\n

Mateen Cleaves Sr. is a Spartans legend.<\/p>\n

He helped lead Michigan State to the 2000 national title.<\/p>\n

Cleaves Sr. was also a two-time Big Ten Player of the Year before going on to a professional career.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Toledo takes first step toward College Football Playoff<\/a><\/p>\n

His son is listed at 6-foot-3, 180 pounds.<\/p>\n

Cleaves Jr. plays his high school ball at Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Prep in West Bloomfield, Michigan.<\/p>\n

He is also reported right now to have been offered by Rutgers.<\/p>\n

Cleaves Sr. was coached by Tom Izzo, who is still roaming the sidelines at Michigan State in the midst of a Hall of Fame career.<\/p>\n

Izzo is 70, and will turn 71 in January.<\/p>\n

It’ll be interesting to see if he can stick around through Cleaves Jr., who wouldn’t play his first college basketball season until three years from now.<\/p>\n

It’d be a fitting way for Izzo to wrap things up, especially if another Cleaves could lead the way toward another title.<\/p>\n

Izzo just coached Jase Richardson, the son of Jason Richardson, another father-son duo that both played for the Spartans.<\/p>\n

It could be the Cleaves family up next.<\/p>\n

MORE COLLEGE NEWS:\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Want to feel old? Michigan State just offered a basketball scholarship to Mateen Cleaves Jr. That news, broken…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-78802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}