Jeremy Fears Jr. is now part of a very small line in Michigan State history.
When the preseason All-American team was released Wednesday afternoon, Fears was on it, placing him alongside Mateen Cleaves, Drew Neitzel, Miles Bridges and Cassius Winston as the only Spartans to earn preseason All-American honors in the Tom Izzo era. In the full program history, only Steve Smith and Shawn Respert had done it before that run began in 1986.
The AP preseason team also included Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner, Florida’s Thomas Haugh, Illinois’ David Mirkovic and Arizona’s Motiejus Krivas.
For Michigan State, the honor points to just how high the ceiling is for Fears. The comparison to Cassius Winston is there for a reason, and Fears now has a chance to do something Winston never did: bring home a national title.
Three of the four previous preseason All-Americans in Izzo’s tenure eventually reached a Final Four, and all three of those players stayed beyond their sophomore seasons. Bridges was the lone exception.
If that pattern holds and this really is Fears’ last year in East Lansing, the Spartans would be looking at a trip to Detroit in April.
The message for Fears is straightforward: keep the focus where it belongs and keep raising the level of the group around him. That’s the job now.
His performance against UConn only added more weight to the selection. The voting was likely already done well before that game, but Fears didn’t exactly hurt his case. Even with people ready to nitpick his game - including Michigan fans griping about the 14 free throws he took against the Huskies when Elliot Cadeau had 15 in his first exhibition game this year - the production was impossible to ignore.
He finished with 23 points and eight assists in 31 minutes, and that came in a game where he still wasn’t at his very best. By his standards, it was probably a B-game.
Even then, he cleared 20 points and got close to a double-double on a night when Michigan State struggled badly to shoot it. That’s the part that stands out.
He was good, not even great, and still looked like the best player on the floor.
Say what you want about the flopping, the extra stuff, or any of the noise that follows him around. The reality is simpler than that: Jeremy Fears Jr. is a great player, and the AP just put his name in the company that proves it.
In Other News...
Tom Izzo Sent A Clear Message To MSU Fans In Loss
Tom Izzo spent part of Michigan States exhibition loss doing something that rarely comes with a scoreboard: trying to calm the building down. During UConns visit to the Breslin Center on Oct. 20, the crowd turned hostile toward Huskies coach Dan Hurley, and Izzo made it clear he wanted the chants to stop while the two sides played a game that carried real early-season buzz despite being an exhibition. No. 5 UConn left East Lansing with a 78-70 win over No. 6 Michigan State, but the night also carried the kind of edge that comes with two highly ranked programs meeting in front of a fired-up crowd.
Afterward, both coaches kept the focus on respect. Izzo and Hurley each praised the others team and coaching, which fit the tone of a matchup that had plenty of intensity without crossing the line into a full-blown showdown. For Michigan State, the result mattered less than the reminder that the Spartans are already in the kind of high-profile games where the environment can tilt fast, and Izzo seemed intent on making sure the message from the home side was about basketball, not the crowd. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan State Heads To UCLA With A Sudden QB Problem
Michigan State is heading into its trip to UCLA with its quarterback picture suddenly in flux, and that is not the kind of issue a team wants to be sorting out on the road. Starter Alessio Milivojevic is listed as questionable because of an unspecified injury, while backup Cam Fancher is already out, leaving the Spartans to consider other options behind center as the week moves on.
If Milivojevic cannot go, Michigan State may have to turn to true freshman Kayd Coffman or second-year quarterback Leo Hannan. Coffman arrives with only limited game experience but came in as a highly rated recruit in the 2026 class, which at least gives the Spartans some long-term upside even as they try to piece together the short-term answer for a crucial Big Ten matchup. [Read more 🡒]
Jeremy Fears Jr Just Gave Michigan State Fans Real Reason To Dream
The Associated Press preseason All-America team gave Michigan State another jolt of national attention, and it came with Jeremy Fears Jr. at the center of it. The Spartans guard was named preseason Player of the Year for 2026-27 and came close to being a unanimous All-American, a sign of how quickly his stock has risen entering the new season. It is the kind of recognition that carries beyond Lansing, especially for a program that always measures itself against the national picture.
The AP list was built around five returning players from last season, with Thomas Haugh, Tyler Tanner, David Mirkovic and Motiejus Krivas joining Fears on the team. For Michigan State, the bigger takeaway is what Fears placement says about the ceiling of this roster and the attention that comes with it. Preseason honors do not decide anything, but they do sharpen expectations, and this one gives Spartan fans plenty of reason to believe the conversation around their team could be bigger than usual. [Read more 🡒]