Jeremy Fears’ brilliance and villain status shines bright in Michigan State’s win vs. Illinois
Jeremy Fears Jr. made history but didn’t make any new friends in Big Ten country on Saturday. The Michigan State point guard etched himself into Spartan lore with a 26-point, 15-assist performance to help No. 10 MSU outlast No. 5 Illinois 85-82 in an overtime thriller.
For a program that has been home to legendary point guards like Magic and Cleaves and Cassius and Valentine, it’s Fears who will be the first Michigan State player to win multiple 15-under matches.
He has done this over the past two weeks.
The same 14-day span in which Fears became a legitimate All-American contender and one of college basketball’s biggest villains after numerous acts that ranged from reckless to shady to downright dirty.
College basketball results, winners and losers: North Carolina and Alabama rally to win rivalry games
David Cobb
Fears attempted to trip Michigan star Yaxel Lendeborg on Jan. 30 in a move that Wolverines coach Dusty May called intentional. He kicked Minnesota’s Langston Reynolds in the groin during Michigan State’s 76-73 loss, a move that earned him a technical, a lick from Tom Izzo and a warning that he might not even start against Illinois.
But on match day, Fears was back in the starting five and embroiled in another controversy. The scares caused 14 fouls, but it was a play that didn’t result in a whistle and one that pissed off the Illinois bench. The scares appeared to cause Illini big man David Mirkovic to trip during an open-court runout, but upon review it was not upgraded to a flagrant foul.
“There was nothing on the trip, they looked at it,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said in the postgame news conference. “It’s always going to be a judgment call. He stops. That’s what he does. But yeah, he was great. We didn’t do a very good job of confronting him. He plays with a lot of speed and pace. I was disappointed that we fouled him so many times. He’s not a very good shooter, and we wanted him to have to shoot the ball even if it was a layup. He’s crafty, he is smart and did a good job tonight.”
This saga seems far from over, but one thing is clear: Fears’ debt to his team has been repaid.
His actions against Minnesota objectively cost his team the game, but the Spartans don’t beat the big, bad Illini without him.
“It was pretty tough, to be honest,” Fears told Fox in a postgame interview on the court. “It’s not my character. It’s not who I am. I want to be able to help my team. I couldn’t help my team in the last few games. I wanted to help my team get the victory today. No matter what.”
Fears scored 22 of 26 after halftime, including a remarkable 11 points in overtime. Illinois fought brilliantly at the Breslin Center until the very last second, showing that it has what it takes to make a strong showing in the race for the Big Ten Championship and Final Four, but it couldn’t fight back without fouling out in the final moments. For Fears, drawing fouls is a kind of art, even if it puts the opposition into dizziness (or another sip from the bottle).
Fears told CBS Sports at Big Ten Media Days that he studies the rules carefully, trying to understand and/or discover all the tricks of the trade that will get him to the free throw line. He shot 13 more free throws in Saturday’s win, bringing his season total to 148. It’s the fifth time this season that Fears has hit double-digit attempts from the charity stripe, and no player in the Big Ten commits more fouls per 40 minutes than Fears (7.2), according to KenPom.com.
“This team has confidence in each other; we’ve played poorly, we’ve had controversies and distractions,” Izzo said. “The best way to stay ahead is to avoid trash bags and distractions.”
Let the swinging and weaving begin even more, because the microscope on fears will not disappear.
Somewhere, in another life, Fears has just crossed the free throw line again.
Species.
