Future Spartan Foster Loyer takes home Michigan Mr. Basketball honors

0
1203

Michigan State suffered yet another early tournament exit on Sunday when they fell 55-53 to 11-seed Syracuse, making it three straight years now without a Sweet 16 appearance.

Now comes another fascinating offseason with regards to the player personnel heading into next season. What we do know is that the Spartans are bringing in a freshman class that is mostly homegrown kids from the state of Michigan. Among those recruits in Clarkston senior point guard Foster Loyer, who picked up a big prep honor on Monday by winning the Hal Schram Mr. Basketball Award.

Loyer, the floor general for the 23-1 Clarkston Wolves, ran away in the voting from the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan, collecting 3,691 points and doubled the first-place votes. He beat out a pair of Michigan signees in Brandon Johns (East Lansing HS) and David DeJulius (Detroit East English Village), who finished second and third, respectively.

Loyer (6-foot, 170 pounds) has done a little bit of everything this season for Clarkston, most notably pouring 27 points per contest. He’s played in 99 out of a possible 100 games for the Wolves over his four seasons, missing just their regular-season finale this season when he suffered a knee injury in the game prior. Clarkston is a remarkable 93-6 since Loyer arrived.

The 4-star recruit for the Wolves is regarded as a top-3 player in the state of Michigan and a top-20 point guard nationally, per the 247Sports Composite rankings. Michigan State was the first school to offer him a scholarship way back in July of 2014 before his freshman year at Clarkston. After making several visits to MSU, and being visited by Spartans head coach Tom Izzo, Loyer eventually made his hard commitment to Michigan State in late November of 2016.

Clarkston is coached at Clarkston by Dan Fife, the father of MSU assistant coach Dane Fife.

Loyer and the rest of the 2018 class for MSU signed their national letter of intent this past November. Among the five incoming freshmen, he’s one of four in-state prospects; four of the top 10 players in the state, according to 247Sports. Among those signees is Thomas Kithier, the former Macomb Dakota High School standout who had planned to transfer to Clarkston for this season.

However, Kithier was ruled ineligible by the MHSAA back in early December after Dakota HS refused to sign his transfer papers, citing that the decision was solely athletically-motivated.

As for Loyer and Clarkston, they are still competing in the Class A state playoffs, which has been trimmed down to the quarterfinal stage that begins on Tuesday. The defending State Champion Wolves will play Flint Carman-Ainsworth (23-2) at Grand Blanc High School at approximately 7 p.m. ET; you can also catch the game live on MHSAA.TV.