EAST LANSING, Mich. — On any given afternoon at IM West, the courts of the old rec center buzz with the organized chaos of pickup basketball. Students filter in and out constantly, backpacks are slung against the wall, and players put on footwear best grip the reflective glaze blanketing the floors.
Pickup basketball at Michigan State has grown into its own culture, populated by a mix of former high school players, competitive regulars and students who just want to play after a long day of classes. The courts create a community that forms and reforms daily.
As MSU closes IM West for good, shifting activity toward the new Student Recreation and Wellness Center, the players who packed these courts night in and night out say the runs represent more than exercise. The pickup scene is an outlet, a place to stay connected and a way to hold onto a game they love.
IM West has served the MSU community since 1959. Today, the building's seven basketball courts have seen better days. The lighting is dim, foam and paint peels from the walls, and the stuffy gym air pairs perfectly with the prominent smell of chlorine from the pool below. But for decades, the building has been the heartbeat of MSU’s pickup scene.
For MSU students like Jacob Macias, he will always look at these courts fondly, even as he wonders how the culture of pickup basketball might shift in a new building.
“It’s good memories, bro. Definitely good memories,” he said.
Macias doesn’t think about the worn‑down courts themselves, instead the people who filled them.
“I still, to this day, walk around campus and see people that I met from playing basketball,” Macias said.
The same faces showed up every day, creating a community that stretched far beyond the walls of the gym.
“You meet a lot of people. They usually like going the same days you are, and eventually you get to meet with them and even try to go the same days they are so you guys can play together,” Macias said.
Even as IM West closes its doors for good, Macias doesn’t believe the culture disappears just because the building does.
“I don’t think the culture gets lost,” he said.
Isaac O’Toole, a Michigan State student who played at IM West three to four times a week, feels the same mix of nostalgia for the old building and acceptance in its closing.
He will miss the convenience the most.
“It was so close to where I was, it was an easy walk.” O’Toole said.
But not the building itself.
“I think the new rec can probably exceed it,” he said. “It’ll bring more people together, it's gonna be the talk of the town.”
While Macias and O’Toole look at IM West with respect for what it was, neither ties their love for pickup to its walls. For many students, like Elijah Townsend, the real draw has always been the people, the game, the community, the escape.
Townsend plays religiously.
“Assuming I'm not busy, I'm there every day.” He said “I’ll be there Monday through Friday.”
The games move fast: winner‑stays‑on, first to 11 by ones and twos. Quick drives, heavily contested threes and backdoor cuts leading to layups, followed immediately by the “He’s too small” or “He can’t guard you” chirps, highlight each game.
It happens every day, repeating for hours as players rotate in and out, keeping the runs alive from the moment the doors open until the lights shut off.
For Townsend, this rhythm is more than a game he loves, it’s where everything fades away.
“Oh, definitely just zone out. Like, it's my place where I just go,” he said. “Everything I've been thinking about all day, like all the schoolwork, all the life stuff, it just disappears. I just get to have fun.”
This happens before he even steps foot on the court.
“Right before I hoop, it starts to fade,” Townsend said. “Then when I'm playing, it's just gone.”
For a couple of hours, the sport he loves becomes the only thing that matters. Townsend grew up playing basketball, and pickup keeps him connected to that version of himself he once was.
“Sometimes I’ll remember the stuff I used to be doing in high school because I used to be nice, I used to be cold, and then I kind of had some injuries,” Townsend said. “I chose not to play in college, which was kind of a mistake in my opinion, so like when I play I just have fun.”
Townsend added, “Yeah, I would think so,” when asked if pickup keeps him close to the player he was in high school.
Pickup is also where he spends most of his time with friends.
“I’m not a big going‑out person. Like, my social outing is me just going to play basketball, having fun with people, just talking trash and stuff,” Townsend said.
Nearly everyone he’s met at MSU, he met on a court.
“I’d say, like, 99% of people I've met here have been from basketball,” he said.
Pickup gives him community, routine, and a way to release everything he carries throughout the day. Townsend couldn't imagine losing that.
“I might lose it, bro,” he said. “I feel bottled up. Like I don’t have any way to release my energy, so, like, I don’t know, that’d be rough.”
Part of that release comes from the personality of pickup itself. He laughs about the arguments over fouls, the tension when the score hits 11‑11, the way things can escalate instantly.
The familiar symphony of pickup takes over the gym, balls pounding against the floor, sneakers squeaking up and down the court, players calling out for next, sometimes sparking debates over who really has it.
“It gets serious,” Townsend said. “It goes from 0 to 10 really quickly.”
Especially on the “good court,” one of the many unwritten rules of pickup basketball where the best players run, one loss could have you waiting a long time to play again.
“If you lose, you’re probably sitting for like 30 minutes, so nobody wants to lose. So it gets serious.” Townsend said.
All that intensity is exactly what keeps Townsend coming back, feeding on the competitiveness of the sport.
“I like f’---ing people up,” Townsend said when asked what keeps him coming back to pickup. “I like to get buckets, I like playing basketball.”
Beneath all the intensity and trash talk, pickup’s heart is in the people. That community, built in the runs and the routine that will outlast any gym.
Student Kama Knox has felt this from the moment he started playing pickup. The mix of competition and camaraderie is what makes pickup at Michigan State so special.
Knox makes it a point to play at least three to four times a week.
“It’s really just the people you meet, you know. The connections you meet here. I met so many people just from playing basketball,” Knox said.
This atmosphere is something he hasn’t found anywhere else on campus.
“It’s really a great atmosphere. Like nowhere else on campus you can get that.” He said.
Even people who don’t play every day still feel that same community pull. Student Sam Marinucci, who plays once a week, said it's the routine of pickup that creates its strong community.
“If you go at the same time every week, you see the same people there, and that starts a new friendship or just new competition you have with these people.” Marinucci said.
The relationships on the court matter just as much, if not more, then the games themselves.
“I think I’d lose some friendships and some relationships, and just kind of bonding with people over basketball,” Marinucci said, when asked what he would lose if he stopped playing pickup.
IM West may be shutting down, trading its chipped foam walls for the floor‑to‑ceiling windows of the new Student Recreation and Wellness Center. The courts will be newer, brighter and cleaner, now featuring a college three‑pointer and a Michigan State logo at the center of every court. The rims won’t rattle the same after misses, and the floor won’t creak from the weight of decades of pickup basketball games. But the players who filled this old building, the ones who argued over next and talked trash to the strangers who would later become friends, aren’t going anywhere.
The people are the culture.