Seeing Michigan State play mostly-lifeless basketball for a second straight game against a 10-12 Minnesota team had to infuriate Tom Izzo more than he lets on.
The Hall of Fame head coach spoke about how disappointed he was with the end result and he even said it was a "weird" game. Izzo actually came off as rather calm considering what we saw on the floor for 40 minutes against a team that didn't have a bench (17 bench minutes by two players).
Instead, he spoke candidly about being disappointed in his veterans, and even took a minute to talk about Jeremy Fears and how his sophomore point guard needs to "grow up a little bit".
Izzo also opened some eyes by saying that he might not start Fears against Illinois on Saturday.
Izzo says he doesn't know if he'll start Fears the next game. "Jeremy's gotta grow up a little bit."
— Chris Solari (@chrissolari) February 5, 2026
While coming off the bench to just play 35 minutes won't really teach Fears a lesson, I do think that the gesture will get his attention and he's going to respond favorably to his coach's decision. He may not like the idea of coming off the bench in a top-10 matchup, but he's going to have to really take what he did and learn from it.
Fears can't be out there making costly mistakes because he's trying to lean into the whole "dirty player" talk. He's way too talented to be resorting to that kind of play.
Jeremy Fears needs to use this as a wake-up call
No one is saying that Fears hasn't been playing well lately, because he has. He's been playing at an All-American-type level, but these silly instances of getting caught playing mind games with opponents has creeped in a little too much and those are dominating headlines. That's not fair to his actual play -- he's doing himself a disservice.
While I don't think Fears is a "dirty" player like Michigan fans will lead you to believe, I do think he needs to quit with the constant mind games and just let his play do the talking.
Sure, he can trash talk here and there to get in opponents' heads, but doing all the extracurricular stuff that we hated Brad Davidson and Grayson Allen for is just not it.
Perhaps a slight benching against Illinois will wake him up.