Three years ago in his first ever game against the University of Michigan, then-freshman guard Bryn Forbes had five points and shot just 2-of-11 from the floor and 1-of-7 from behind the 3-point line, as Cleveland State University lost to U-M 77-47.
But Saturday night, during Forbes’ possible final game against U-M, he scored 29 points on 8-of-10 from the 3-point line and 10-of-13 from the floor — a true testament to the hard work and dedication that has brought him full-circle from growing up in Lansing, to leaving, and then finding his way home.
Forbes did not receive a lot of scholarship offers from big-time college basketball programs coming out of high school, in part because he matured and grew later than others.
“He grew late,” said Sue Forbes, Bryn Forbes’ mother. “So he was 5-foot-10 when he started his junior year, and then by the time he was in his senior year, he was about 6-foot, 6-foot-2. So he had this growth spurt that was late and then he started having a little more interest, but a lot of the large schools had already committed all their scholarships by the time Bryn got bigger.”
Forbes said it was tough to leave Lansing and his best friend Denzel Valentine, who he had been playing basketball with since he was seven years old, but he understood he had a different path than MSU senior guard Valentine.
“I mean, everybody wants to play at the highest level, but that wasn’t my journey and I understood that, so I was happy for him,” Forbes said.
Sue Forbes said they knew Cleveland State would be a place Bryn could grow and develop both on and off the court.
Cleveland State’s coach Gary Waters was who the Forbes family thought would best be able to help Bryn develop.
“We were probably focused more on getting him with the right coach and the right attitude and trying to find the right chemistry on the team than we were with a particular school,” Sue Forbes said.
Forbes said he thinks going to Cleveland State for two years like he did was a tremendous benefit in how the coaching staff helped him grow both on and off the court.
“I loved their staff, I love what they’re about, very religious school and they taught me a lot of things in that area,” Bryn Forbes said. “I just learned a lot from those guys and knew they had a lot to offer me. They really helped me mature my game, mature as a person, taught me a lot of things that I carry with me today and that I’ll probably carry with me the rest of my life.”
Just before Forbes’ sophomore season at Cleveland State, he had a child, Carter, who lived in Lansing with his mother during his sophomore year.
In an effort to ensure Bryn Forbes could have a relationship with his son, Sue Forbes dedicated her time to driving Carter down to Cleveland State every two weeks or so.
Carter played a huge role in Bryn Forbes’ decision to ask for a release from Cleveland State and ask MSU coach Tom Izzo about possibly transferring to play at MSU.
“I had had my son coming into (my sophomore) year and I came back for a couple reasons,” Forbes said. “My sister got sick, so it was a quick thing. It just happened.”
Bryn Forbes knew some of the guys on the team already when he got to MSU, as a result of working out with Valentine in the MSU gyms whenever he would take a trip home while at Cleveland State.
When he arrived at MSU, Izzo knew he had gotten a very talented shooter, but also saw a lot of room for growth and much work to still be done.
“Well, he got on the floor a couple of times (against U-M), that was illegal when I got him,” Izzo said after MSU’s win over U-M Saturday. “I give him credit, he’s playing harder, he’s playing better defensively. He could always shoot the ball, nobody gave him any words of wisdom on how to shoot the ball. I think he’s doing a good job of learning how to come off screens and do things like that.”
Throughout Forbes’ now season-and-a-half with MSU, the one thing Izzo has continued to preach to him is the importance of becoming a two-way player and being just as sharp defensively as he is lethal offensively.
“His mentality now is, ‘I’ve got to guard and I’ve got to shoot’ and if he can do both then you’re a hell of a player, because most shooters struggle to do both,” Izzo said.
Forbes’ former coach and Denzel Valentine’s father Carlton Valentine said he has noticed Bryn Forbes has become a much more focused and consistent player, and gave credit to the MSU coaching staff for getting Bryn Forbes to be “dialed in.”
“I think where he’s improved is his consistency and his focus,” Carlton Valentine said. “Bryn’s improved tremendously with his focus, and you have to give the coaching staff credit for that, because they’ve got him dialed in.”
That improved consistency shows, as Bryn Forbes has become one of the best 3-point shooters in the country, shooting the three at a remarkable 50.3 percent, which is number one in the Big Ten.
While nobody knows how Forbes’ senior year with MSU will end, Sue Forbes thinks the experiences he had going to Cleveland State were phenomenal for her son, as it made him hungry.
“Bryn has an insatiable appetite for making himself better and that was his goal,” Sue Forbes said. “He really talked to me not so much about proving to people that he could play at this level, but more that he was just going to keep working hard and making himself better. And he still says that, and he’s playing for Michigan State now and he’s still working hard to make himself a better player.
“He just sees that each of these things is a stepping stone towards having the job he wants to have and doing what he wants to do with his life. I don’t know if he’s as preoccupied with proving himself to people as we might be, I think he’s more determined that he’s going to make it to the next level of basketball.”
