Tom Izzo has been making his media rounds this week ahead of 3-seed Michigan State’s huge Sweet 16 battle against Dan Hurley and No. 2 seed UConn.
It’s one of the biggest games of Izzo’s career because a win could put him in position to make his ninth Final Four and the field this year is very winnable. While Duke, Michigan, and Arizona are the clear favorites in the field, I like Michigan State’s chances against whichever team comes out of the South Region, especially since the Spartans have faced three of them — and beat two.
If Izzo is going to make his ninth Final Four this weekend, he’s going to have to rely heavily on redshirt sophomore Jeremy Fears Jr.
Izzo appeared on Up and Adams, a podcast hosted by Kay Adams, this week and he was asked about Fears and his leadership. Adams asked Izzo if he believes that Fears is doing things that Magic Johnson never did, and he laughed it off and gave an immediate “no”.
He did, however, go on to reveal what Fears needs to do in order to be mentioned in the same breath and Magic or Mateen Cleaves — two guys who Izzo called the greatest of all time.
“There’s a reason Magic’s Magic and Mateen’s Mateen,” Izzo said. “They were the best leaders. Players, yes, but leaders. Which means a leader gathers other people, he brings everybody along. He makes people not as good better than they actually are… it’s great to play good yourself, but it’s elite if you can make other people around you even better.”
Izzo went on to say that Fears is making great progress towards that and that he’s proud of him. He did also joke that he wants to downplay the constant accolades to keep him focused.
Jeremy Fears Jr. will have the numbers to be mentioned with the greats
Like Izzo said, it’s going to be up to Jeremy if he wants to be mentioned among the greats, because he needs to make everyone around him better first. If he can do that, there’s a good chance he wins a national title in East Lansing and gets into that conversation with Mateen and Magic.
Right now, though, Fears is on track to have the numbers to be compared to those legends.
It’s hard to put Magic in this conversation because he’s an all-time basketball legend, but Fears has the stats that will compare favorably to Mateen. He’s currently averaging 15.3 points and Mateen’s career-high in East Lansing was 16.1. He’s averaging 9.4 assists and Mateen’s career-high was 7.2. He’s shooting just over 32 percent from deep and Mateen shot 31 percent for his career.
Mateen has Fears on steals, but the current Spartan point guards has Cleaves beat in rebounds, field goal percentage, and free throw percentage.
If Fears sticks around for 1-2 more years, he’s going to be in that conversation with the greats.