MSU Gets Positive Update in Recruitment of Five-Star Ethan Taylor

Michigan State basketball is right in the thick of the recruitment of center Ethan Taylor, a five-star player who is ranked as the 24th-best member of the 2026 class on the 247Sports Composite.

The Spartans just hosted Taylor for an official visit this Thursday and Friday. He was in attendance for the annual "Michigan State Madness" event at the Breslin Center, where his name was chanted by members of the Izzone. Head coach Tom Izzo, who can't acknowledge Taylor publicly under NCAA rules until he's signed, merely said, "Who's that?" Taylor also did some crowdsurfing at the Izzone Campout shortly after.

On Monday evening, on the heels of that eventful visit, Jacob Polacheck of Kentucky Sports Report reported that Taylor had canceled his visit to Kentucky that was set for this coming weekend and that he is "no longer considering" the Wildcats.

That means that Michigan State is probably going to get the last word, as far as visits go, in Taylor's recruitment. He announced that he was down to six schools on Aug. 9, but the race is down to five with Kentucky no longer in consideration. Besides MSU, the other programs left are Oregon, Indiana, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Taylor had already taken visits to each of those schools before he came to East Lansing this past weekend.

Generally, it's a good sign when a recruit who just visited your school cancels future visits. It doesn't mean Taylor to MSU is a done deal, but sometimes it means that the recruit was impressed enough with what he saw on the visit that he doesn't feel the need to visit any other places to make a decision.

Michigan State's 2026 Recruiting Class