Jeremy Fears Jr. follows legendary footsteps with preseason All-American honors

Mateen Cleaves.
Drew Neitzel.
Miles Bridges.
Cassius Winston.
Jeremy Fears Jr.

That’s the list of preseason All-Americans in the Tom Izzo era at Michigan State. Fears has officially joined one of the most exclusive clubs in program history.

Only two other Spartans — Steve Smith and Shawn Respert) — have been named to preseason All-Americans in program history (debuting in 1986).

The preseason All-American team dropped on Wednesday afternoon and Fears was the headliner, joined by Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner, Florida’s Thomas Haugh, Illinois’ David Mirkovic, and Arizona’s Motiejus Krivas.

It’s hard to believe that he’s just the fifth Spartan to ever make a preseason All-American team under Izzo, but Fears has National Player of the Year potential much like Cassius did back during his junior and senior years. Fears will have a chance to do something Cassius never could and that’s win a national title.

Three of the four previous preseason All-Americans were able to make Final Fours in their Michigan State careers. The three that did make Final Fours all stayed past their sophomore seasons while Bridges was the only one who missed out. If this trend continues and this truly is Fears’ last season at Michigan State, we’ll see the Spartans in Detroit in April.

Fears is following some legendary Spartan footsteps. All he has to do is shut out the noise and focus on getting the guys around him better and ready for March.

Jeremy Fears’ UConn performance solidified his status

Fears was obviously going to be named a preseason All-American no matter what had happened against UConn because teams were probably voted on weeks ago, but his performance against the Huskies only solidified it.

There are always going to be Fears haters out there, like Michigan fans who complained about him shooting 14 free throws against UConn when Elliot Cadeau had 15 in his first exhibition game this year, but no one can deny that he’s a great player. He’s always in control and everything looks effortless to him.

The junior All-American finished with 23 points and eight assists in 31 minutes and he didn’t have his best game. He probably played his B-game, at best, which is terrifying when you consider what his potential is. He played well, but not great, and still scored 20-plus and approached a double-double on a really poor shooting night for the Spartans.

Say all you want about Fears being a flopper or doing too much extracurricular stuff, but you can’t deny how great of a player he is. The AP certainly isn’t denying it.

The junior point guard is in some elite company once again.

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