WASHINGTON — A lot has been made about Tarris Reed Jr. not playing in the exhibition game between Michigan State and UConn last October, as if MSU’s big guys don’t know what they’re up against.
In fact, there are no two players in this matchup more familiar with each other than the Spartans’ Jaxon Kohler and Reed — rivals as prospects in the same class in high school and in the Iverson Classic, and then at MSU and Michigan, and now again in the Sweet 16.
“This is probably going to be our last matchup,” Reed said Thursday, ahead of Friday night’s NCAA tournament East Regional semifinal, set to tipoff at 9:45 p.m. in Washington, D.C.
Who knows where their professional basketball careers will take them. To this point, their paths have collided at every turn — from a battle in high school, when Kohler was at SoCal Academy and Reed was at Link Academy in Missouri and Kohler’s team drove through a storm to get to the game in Branson. To then facing each other the Iverson Classic All-American showcase in April 2022, when Kohler had a driving, spinning dunk over Reed that went viral, to four meetings during Reed’s two years at Michigan, the last of which included nearly 10 minutes of the two of them going head to head.
“We’ve had some good battles, and I’ve always kept my eye on him,” Kohler said. “But he’s improved a lot. I mean, he just had a 30-point game. That’s impressive. … He’s just grown as a post presence. He’s got good footwork. He’s always been a guy who can make a good move down there. Just got a lot of respect for him, and I know it’s going to be a battle.”
“He always had game,” Reed said Thursday in UConn’s locker room at Capital One Arena. “He was always known for his skill, his footwork, his touch around the rim and being able to shoot the 3. So that’s always what I respected about him.”
It’s unclear exactly how much they’ll be matched up directly against each other Friday night. If they stay out of foul trouble, there’s no avoiding it to some degree — especially Kohler guarding Reed. It’s a fitting challenge at this point in Kohler’s career. For Carson Cooper, too.
MSU’s big men were the roster’s biggest vulnerability defensively two and three years ago. By last season, they had grown into players who could hold their own against most matchups. But they weren’t yet able to counter the true behemoths, like Auburn big man Johni Broome, who had 25 points and 14 rebounds against the Spartans’ in the Elite Eight.
“I think we’re better in all aspects of that,” Cooper said. “I’m better, Jaxon’s better. We’ve developed really well and prepared ourselves for this. And, I think, there’s an aspect where we’ve created our own personality, where we’re not just defensive mindset kind of players, where they’re probably scouting how they’ve got to guard us. And I don’t think that was much of an emphasis last year.”
Cooper and Kohler are hoping this isn’t the last great interior challenge they have to meet. But this will be a test of their ability to handle a guy whose style offensively is, as Cooper put it, “I’m gonna go through your chest.” And while they deal with that from the 6-foot-11, 265-pound Reed, they — and others — will have to be stuck to 6-8 forward Alex Karaban, whose shooting range goes beyond 25 feet.
Karaban is a difficult matchup. Facing Reed is simply a moment of truth. One that’ll also require a few strong minutes from redshirt freshman Jesse McCulloch. “We’re going to need Jesse,” Cooper said.
Kohler is stronger and more equipped to handle it these days, but he’s still undersized relative to Reed. He’s just been in this situation enough to have a detailed plan.
“When you’re playing a player that’s 7-foot and 270 (pounds), pure muscle, you kind of learn little tricks and little things to kind of help you,” Kohler said. “Like, OK, make sure he can’t get to his left shoulder, or make sure he can’t spin off his right shoulder. You just have to kind of build a list of certain things that can work against big guys like that. And for Reed, it’s just making sure that he can’t get to his dominant hand or his dominant shoulder, and making sure that, when they’re that big, you fight, you fight, you fight, and try to tire him out.”
Reed, like Kohler, has gone through a physical transformation from when he first arrived. He looks chiseled relative to the player he was with the Wolverines two years ago. Two years of clean eating, he said, have helped him remake his body.
“I had to lock in,” Reed said. “I mean, my two years in Michigan were great, but I was just young. I was young and inexperienced. I thought I knew everything, which I didn’t. So I came here, humbled myself and locked in on and off the court. … (My diet has) really changed everything.”
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Reed, who put up 31 points and 16 rebounds in UConn’s first-round NCAA tournament game against Furman, is averaging 14.2 points and 8.9 rebounds, more than three of them on the offensive glass. He’s also blocking two shots per game.
He was a force on occasion at Michigan and sometimes last season. But this season has been different. Learning to listen to coach Danny Hurley has been key to that, he said.
“This guy won back-to-back national championships,” Reed said. “Learn from him, learn from the previous players. Take that on the chin and keep grinding.”
RELATED: Couch: From UConn to UConn, how an early season exhibition set Michigan State’s basketball team on a path to the Sweet 16
Reed could have taken his lessons from Izzo, if he chose to. He took his first official recruiting visit to MSU in early June of 2021.
“I remember everything about that visit,” Reed said. “I just remember talking to Coach Izzo and being blown away by the facility, and how cool Coach Izzo was, the coaching staff, and just like Michigan State as a whole, the campus.”
A few months later, Kohler visited and, not long after, committed to MSU.
A few months after that, they were on a court against each other in Branson, Missouri. And months after that, they were in Memphis, Tennessee, with the best of the 2022 class at the Iverson Classic, with Kohler out to prove he belonged. His famed dunk on Reed, who could only nod after the gym went crazy, was highlighted in a documentary on the event.
“It was a lifetime ago,” Kohler said Thursday. “We’re both different players. We’ve both grown so much since then.”
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Contact Graham Couch at [email protected]. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.
