Michigan State senior center Carson Cooper might have just found a way to get his girlfriend to play video games with him.
That’s because the MSU men’s and women’s basketball teams and its players are going to be featured in “NBA 2K,” the most popular basketball simulation video game on Playstation and Xbox consoles.
“I think I could finally convince my girlfriend to play it if I was actually in it,” Cooper said.
The Spartans are one of 16 collegiate programs that 2K Games, colloquially known as “2K,” selected to be a part of the basketball game that already features all 30 NBA teams. 2K releases a new version of the game every year around early September, the most recent edition being “NBA 2K26.”
“I play it all the time,” Michigan State junior forward Coen Carr said. “I play it now. The team plays it together. We spend a lot of off time doing that.”
He added, “Everybody that plays basketball wants to be in the game.”
Some of the other colleges that have either publicly acknowledged 2K’s visit or have had the same trailer shown in MSU’s posts be spotted around their campuses include Duke, Purdue, UCLA, and North Carolina.
MSU first teased its inclusion in the game on the evening of Nov. 11, when the men’s team posted a video on social media, which shows redshirt sophomore guard Jeremy Fears Jr. and senior guard Nick Sanders getting their photo taken and their faces scanned in an elaborate-looking trailer.
The women’s team posted a similar video two days later, which included senior guard Theryn Hallock and redshirt senior forward Isaline Alexander.
Presumably, that data will be used to make themselves look as lifelike as possible in the game. NBA players, nearly all of whom are in the game, also commonly go through the same process. It’s what 2K collects to ensure that players, such as Fears and Hallock, look nearly identical to what they do in real life.
A source close to the men’s program confirmed to WKAR Sports that this will be a team-wide NIL deal, as well, so each player is expected to be compensated for their likenesses being added into 2K.
Due to NCAA rules, athletes are not allowed to officially acknowledge the NIL deal, a team spokesperson told WKAR. Players were asked about their potential inclusion in the game on a hypothetical basis instead.
“If I was in that game, that would be great,” Fears said. “It would be special. I wouldn’t know what to do if I was in that game. Obviously, I’ve never been in the game, but if I was in the game, that’d be special.”
Fears is not going to be the first member of his family to be placed into 2K, either. His younger brother, Jeremiah Fears, was the seventh overall draft pick in the 2025 NBA Draft by the New Orleans Pelicans after spending one year in college at Oklahoma. Every NBA player in the game also gets a “rating” out of a possible 99 based upon how good 2K determines them to be at things like shooting, dribbling, and defense. 2K also updates rankings throughout the year based upon performance.
Jeremiah, for example, currently has a 77 overall rating.
“It would be sweet,” Cooper said. “That’s something I haven’t really thought about it much, but it would be really cool if we were able to work together and see myself in that [game]. That’d be awesome.”
How or what 2K will be using the players’ likenesses for exactly is unclear at this point, but the games within the larger game, or “game modes,” hint at a few potential ways that Spartan basketball could be incorporated in.
The simplest idea is for 2K to create a college version of “Play Now,” where gamers can play a simple simulated game of any two NBA teams. Potentially, Michigan State men’s or women’s basketball could also be loaded up and one player could have the Spartans face Purdue.
Another popular game mode is “MyTeam,” where users virtually collect cards of players throughout NBA and WNBA history and essentially form their personal dream team. If college players were to be added into this game mode, theoretically, someone could be controlling Hall of Famer and Michigan State legend Magic Johnson and then toss an alley-oop to Carr.
2K is also planning to do more than just slot in 16 college teams into its current NBA game. The company announced in September that it is working on a standalone college basketball video game, something that hasn’t happened since EA Sports released “NCAA Basketball 10” in 2009. Currently, the expected release date is in 2027, according to ESPN.
This return of college basketball to video games would also have not been possible if college athletes were not first allowed to make money off their likenesses back in 2021.
Interestingly enough, “NCAA Basketball 09” helped clear the way for NIL, when former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon sued EA Sports for using his likeness without his permission. EA hadn’t included O’Bannon’s name, but the avatar had his jersey number, height, bald head, and skin tone. The suit reached the Supreme Court, and O’Bannon won, with the ruling meaning that the NCAA’s previous ban on payments to college athletes violated federal antitrust laws.
The main downside of 2K’s announcement, though, is that it implies that a lot of Division I schools will be left out. It states that “more than 100 programs” will be in its “college basketball experience,” but there are 365 teams competing in Division I basketball this year.
That doesn’t threaten MSU’s status, since it made a 16-team short list already, but that could mean smaller programs around Michigan like Eastern Michigan, Central Michigan, Western Michigan, Oakland, and Detroit Mercy could be excluded.