MSU's Cooper Feels Optimistic As Collegiate Games Dwindle

"I didn't necessarily, on paper, deserve to be here," Cooper said on Tuesday. "I wasn't ranked in anything. I didn't have any super flashy offers other than this."

The piece of paper or the recruiting ranking (or lack thereof) only means so much, though. Cooper has played well above the "N/A" by the rankings section of his recruiting profile for some time now, but especially this season, where he's averaging 10.3 points and 7.2 rebounds per game as the starting center on one of the nation's 10 best teams. Pretty good for a zero-star.

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Plenty of guys in Cooper's shoes might have transferred out. Some coaches in Izzo's shoes would have moved on from Cooper. It never felt that certain that Cooper would become as vital a part of this program as he has until this season began. He and Tom Izzo stuck with each other, and now both are being rewarded with Cooper playing his very best basketball towards the end.

"It speaks to the character that he [Izzo] has and to the character that the program has and how they really love their guys and they really trust the guys that they bring in," Cooper said. "The relationships I've built with everybody, it's going to last a lifetime, and guys that transfer out, that's what they're missing."

"They're burning bridges. You're losing relationships with people, and I feel like [if] you stay in the same spot or stay somewhere for a long period of time, you have those people to rely on and lean on in the future."

One of Izzo's regrets is that he didn't redshirt him. Cooper played in nearly every game as a true freshman, but one can definitely wonder about the possibilities if Michigan State had given those 6.6 minutes per game that year to someone else instead. Izzo thinks that Cooper has more layers to his game that haven't been unlocked yet. He'll just have to do so at the professional level instead.

"If he did have one more year, would he be a Morris Peterson?" Izzo said. "Could he be a Player of the Year candidate? Would he be a 13-year pro? Who knows? But, yeah, I wish I would have [redshirted Cooper]."

Cooper does come off as somebody who feels confident about his professional future. He's got plenty of alumni he can reach out to for advice there, and he also knows that, while the NBA is always the goal, it's not the only way one can play basketball for a living after college. Whenever MSU's season ends, he knows his career isn't over.

"It's a bittersweet moment," Cooper said about his upcoming Senior Night against Rutgers on Thursday. "I think the best is yet to come still. It'll be an emotional day for sure, but I know there's more basketball to be played after the year, and that [Rutgers] isn't the last game of the year."