I don't know about you, but I'm excited for Wednesday night's Michigan State basketball showdown in College Park against No. 16 Maryland.
The Terrapins are probably slightly underranked at No. 16 with a 21-6 record and sitting at 11-5 in the Big Ten as they've beaten teams like Illinois and Wisconsin over the past few weeks, but they do have bad losses this year to teams like Ohio State, Northwestern, and Washington.
Maryland has been one of the Big Ten's biggest surprises, however, and Kevin Willard should honestly be in the running for coach of the year. Tom Izzo, too, deserves plenty of praise.
Enough about how good both teams are, let's dive into some predictions for the showdown.
1. Jeremy Fears Jr. has his best game since Washington
Jeremy Fears has received a fair amount of criticism in recent weeks for his inability to score at a rate that would view him as a threat to defenses. In fact, defenses have sagged so far off the freshman point guard that he is able to dribble 1-2 times inside the arc before meeting a defender. Two zero-point performances in the past five games will do that.
But the team hasn't really needed him to score outside of that Indiana loss where it felt like he was trying not to. He heard the criticism and he had his first 10-point performance since Feb. 1 against Michigan.
That will carry over into Wednesday and he'll also have his first elite passing game since Washington. Fears will have his best game in nearly two months, scoring 12 with eight assists and two turnovers.
2. The Jase Richardson show rolls on
At this point, it's almost more bold to say Jase Richardson isn't going to go off for 20-plus points, but I'm going with the safest of bold predictions here.
Richardson has been averaging 17.2 points over his last five games and he'll top that for the second straight time on Wednesday night, scoring 20 for the third time in six games, leading all scorers in College Park. He'll be efficient once again, scoring 11 in the first half with two big threes and an and-one and then he'll stay hot in the second half for 10 more.
The freshman guard finishes with 21 points on over 50 percent shooting.
3. Michigan State pulls away again
Like seemingly every Michigan State game over the past couple of weeks, this one will be back-and-forth throughout and it'll take a lockdown effort in the final five minutes to secure a win.
Michigan State heads into this game as a 3.5-point underdog but the Spartans will step up and dominate the final five minutes of the game (again) to turn a one-point deficit into an eight-point lead before free throws. The Spartans will end up winning by five, but we will have the final five minutes to thank for yet another Quad 1 victory.
Biggest win of the season as Michigan State tops the Terps, 78-73.