Michigan State guard Jeremy Fears Jr. is starting the season with some serious hardware attached to his name.
The redshirt junior was voted the Big Ten Conference Preseason Player of the Year by the league’s media on Monday afternoon, adding another major honor to a résumé that keeps growing. Last month, Blue Ribbon College Basketball also tabbed Fears as its preseason National Player of the Year for the upcoming season.
Fears was also one of two unanimous picks to the Big Ten’s 10-member Preseason All-Big Ten Team, joining Nebraska senior Pryce Sandfort. The full group also included Illinois’ David Mirkovic and Andrej Stojakovic, Maryland’s Pharrel Payne, Michigan’s Elliot Cadeau and Trey McKenney, Ohio State’s John Mobley Jr., UCLA’s Trent Perry, USC’s Rodney Rice, and Wisconsin’s Nolan Winter.
The recognition comes after a monster 2025-26 season for Fears, one that helped power Michigan State to a 27-8 record and a 15-5 finish in Big Ten play. The Spartans reached the NCAA Tournament for the 28th straight season, a streak officially recognized by the NCAA as the longest active one in the country, and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen for the 17th time under head coach Tom Izzo.
Fears piled up the accolades along the way. He was one of 10 players named to the John R.
Wooden Award® All-America Team in late March, his fifth All-American honor overall. The list also included a Second Team All-America selection from the Associated Press and third-team recognition from The Sporting News, the United States Basketball Writers Association and the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
On the floor, Fears was the engine. He led Michigan State in scoring at 15.2 points per game and paced the Spartans with 9.4 assists per game, which ranked first in the Big Ten and No. 1 in the nation.
He also finished third in the conference in free throw percentage at 88.5 percent and second in assist-to-turnover ratio at 3.86. In fact, he was the only player in the country who averaged at least 15.0 points and 9.0 assists per game.
Those numbers carried over to the national leaderboard, where Fears finished first in assists per game, second in total assists with 328, fourth in assist-to-turnover ratio, and 33rd in free throw percentage.
He broke the Michigan State school record for career assists in the Big Ten Tournament against UCLA, when he delivered 13 assists to pass the previous mark of 291 set by Cassius Winston in 2018-19. By season’s end, Fears had established a new school standard with 328 assists, and his 9.4 assists per game also became a Michigan State record.
Michigan State has already begun its exhibition slate, opening with an 89-59 win over the University of Incarnate Word on Friday, Oct. 2, in the Izzone Campout Game. The Spartans’ next exhibition comes Tuesday, Oct. 20, when they host UConn at the Breslin Center at 7 p.m. on B1G+.
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