Foster Loyer isn’t interested in the Michigan State narrative. He’s focused on one thing
Foster Loyer, Davidson’s point guard, started off his collegiate career playing at Michigan State. If you hear that fact once in No. 10 Davidson’s 9:40 p.m. NCAA tournament game Friday vs. No. 7 Michigan State, you’ll hear it two dozen times.
Loyer, though, is studiously trying to downplay the whole thing.
“This isn’t Foster vs. Michigan State,” Loyer said Thursday, about 28 hours before Davidson’s first NCAA tourney game since 2018. “This isn’t Foster vs. Coach Izzo or anything like that. This is Davidson versus Michigan State.”
Loyer, a junior, remains on good terms with the Spartan players and the coaching staff.
“We still love Foster. ... He was a guy that was a backup and was voted captain,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. “That should tell you a lot about what we think of him, and what our players think of him.”
A high school star from Clarkston, Mich., who was named Michigan’s Mr. Basketball in 2018, Loyer was recruited by Davidson in high school but also by a number of Big Ten programs. His playing time at Michigan State ended up being limited, though, because of injury and by the Spartans’ talent, which is always top-notch.
The transfer to Davidson came because Loyer wanted to play more. “I was interested in having a more predominant role and being kind of that lead guard,” Loyer said in an interview earlier this year with The Observer.
But throughout the year, as Loyer quarterbacked Davidson to a 27-6 record and was elected a captain for the Wildcats as well, he didn’t forget his former teammates.
“Obviously I’ve stayed in touch with some of the guys on the team,” Loyer said. “They were my roommates and best friends the last three years or so. So I kept in touch with them, watching some of their games, just talking to them as friends and all that. I kept in touch with the coaching staff. They would text and congratulate me after a good game, things like that. None of those relationships were burned when I made the decision to come to Davidson.”
Loyer has had quite a first year with the Wildcats. He leads Davidson in scoring (16.4 points per game). More impressively, he leads the entire nation in free-throw percentage (93.4). Loyer made 46 straight free throws during the 2021-22 season, going four straight weeks without a miss, and that broke Steph Curry’s school record of 41 in a row.
At a shade under six feet, Loyer is never going to win a layup line, as he’s pointed out before. Most college players can dunk. He used to be able to do so, but then messed up his knee in high school and can’t anymore.
But he gets his teammates into the right spots, and he’s a strong shooter, and you want the ball in his hands at the end of tight games because of his free-throw shooting.
Loyer has tried not to let this week be all about him. Although he did a group press conference Thursday in Greenville, S.C., he turned down interview requests earlier in the week, including one from The Observer. He has tried not to look at his phone much this week as Davidson attempts to install a game plan to deal with Michigan State’s physicality and rebounding.
“For me, it was important just to kind of shut it down, block everything out,” Loyer said. “I obviously heard from a lot of my friends and family … But at the same time for us, it’s been focusing on doing what we need to do to prepare and not letting anything take us off that course.”
Loyer’s father, John, has served as an NBA scout, assistant coach and even an interim head coach once, for the Detroit Pistons. When the elder Loyer was an assistant coach at Philadelphia, Loyer was a ballboy and watched Allen Iverson get his hair braided before every game.
Foster Loyer has been around the game long enough to know that players often play their former teams, especially in the NBA. It could even happen to Davidson in the next round here. If Davidson and Duke both win Friday, the Wildcats will face former Davidson player Bates Jones — now a Blue Devil — on Sunday.
Jones is a reserve, though, and Loyer is Davidson’s starting point guard. He wants to coach after his career ends, and he’s undoubtedly helped as much as he could this week with Davidson’s scouting report on Michigan State.
As for any potential bad blood, Davidson coach Bob McKillop said: “He’s got a tremendous relationship with the Michigan State program. He’s got such fond and treasured memories of his experience there. Tom Izzo has been sensational from the first time I spoke with Tom about Foster, throughout this whole year. I don’t think that’s much of an issue for anyone, but it’s certainly a talking point for the media.”
Yes, it is. And if Loyer somehow hits a game-winning shot against his old team, March Madness will crown another prince.
