Michigan State basketball point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. is back feeling himself again after spending last summer rehabbing from a gunshot wound.
LANSING – Jeremy Fears Jr. got a glimpse of what he hopes is his future, thanks to his younger brother.
The Michigan State basketball point guard, however, also has his eyes on the present. And how much different he feels from this time last summer while he was rehabbing from a December 2023 gunshot wound that prematurely ended his debut season.
“I think last summer, I was just so eager to play. … I was working on basic stuff, footwork and running and balance,” Fears said Thursday, July 10, at Moneyball Pro-Am at Lansing Eastern High. “Now, I'm able to actually work on my basketball skill and my game. I still think I have a long way to go, and I can get a lot better. So that's really the best part.”
Serving as coach Tom Izzo’s floor general – his on-court extension – Fears averaged 7.2 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.1 steals in his first full season with the Spartans while leading MSU with 5.4 assists a game. That ranked third in the Big Ten and 38th in the country. The 6-foot-2, 190-pound native of Joliet, Illinois, shot 39.7% overall and 34.2% from 3-point range, making 13 in just 38 tries from deep.
After being shot in the left upper thigh Dec. 23, 2023, Fears underwent major surgery and a significant rehab, eventually receiving a medical redshirt from the NCAA. He played only 12 games in his debut year.
Fears got back to playing late last summer and returned to the court in August for the Spartans’ three-game trip to Spain. The only game he missed during the 2024-25 season was because of sickness, and his best basketball came toward the end of the season.
In hindsight, he assessed, he was playing at only 85-90% of his capability after the arduous recovery process.
“Usually they say people make their best jumps, especially with Michigan State basketball, (between) their freshman and sophomore years,” Fears said. “So technically, right now, this is my freshman going into my sophomore year. I was able to start 36 games – I got the feel, I got the flow, and I'm ready. Obviously, as a basketball player, I want to see a big improvement, a big jump for me. But at the same time, have fun.
“Whether the season starts slow for me or start fast, I know it's a process. I know I put the work in, the time in, but hopefully eventually, at some point, I'm gonna have a good stretch and just be consistent throughout the whole way.”
That work began shortly after Big Ten champion MSU’s 30-7 season came to an end with an Elite Eight loss to Auburn in late March. Fears began helping his younger brother, Jeremiah, prepare for the 2025 NBA Draft as a one-and-done early entrant after reclassifying and playing last season with Oklahoma. Together, they worked with former NBA star Mike Miller, their agent, on their games – both to get Jeremiah prepared for the next level and to help accelerate Jeremy’s return to the form that made him a four-star recruit and top-35 player in the 2023 recruiting class.
The New Orleans Pelicans took the younger Fears with the No. 7 pick in last month’s NBA draft, and big bro was right by his side in New York along with their parents for the moment. He called it “a long process, a hectic day. But definitely one I'll remember.”
And one he wants to replicate sometime soon.
“That's been my dream. It's still my dream, and something that I want to accomplish,” Fears said. “So at the end of the day, it's just a little bit more extra motivation on top of everything.”
Along with working with his brother and Miller, Fears continues to work on leading the Spartans’ quest to repeat as Big Ten champs and go deeper in the NCAA tournament. MSU is deep into summer workouts, and his teammates are seeing their leader looking whole again.
“I think his athleticism is coming back a lot. He's getting it back, he's getting back to Jeremy,” junior forward Coen Carr said recently. “Not like he wasn't Jeremy, it just takes a little bit to get that back. So he's been getting back. His shot has been coming on great. He's been one of the guys that's been improving that shot a lot. So I think he's gonna be great.”
One of the biggest changes from a year ago, Fears said, is his how his body feels going into workouts.
“I would (take) a while to even get ready for practice,” he said “This summer, it's like nothing. The way I walk in the gym, I'm ready to go. We used to have to ride the bike for five minutes and do my own stretch and do water and just a lot of prehab to get my body ready. Now, it's like I can just walk in and be ready.”
Fears said Miller – nearly a 41% 3-point shooter during his 17 NBA seasons – put him through drills and gave him advice he feels helped his form and to get a better sense of the looks he should be hunting. The drills focused on both plays from behind the arc and off dribble penetration, a sometimes-forgotten facet by outsiders, and one way Fears said he knew his legs didn’t have his usual bounce.
“It's just realizing I never had my legs under me,” he said. “I can look back and now be like, man. Early in the season, if you watched, I was tripping a lot. They always stayed on the floor, and I just didn't have my feet underneath me."
And Fears feels that work with Miller will pay big dividends for MSU this winter, especially because the Spartans lost nearly 82% of their made 3-pointers and nearly 83% of their 3-point attempts from last year’s squad with the departures of former backcourt mates Jase Richardson (NBA), Tre Holloman (transfer) and Jaden Akins (graduation), among others.
“Obviously, I kind of know what I've needed to work on,” Fears said. “For me, everybody goes, 'shot, shot, shot.' But at the same time, I can say the open shots I took, I made. I didn't take as many, but the ones I did take, I think I made. So this obviously now is getting more comfortable, and I would say maybe taking a little bit more, the open ones or the makeable ones. …
“I just think all around my game has improved and gotten lot better. I got smarter, got stronger, and the games have slowed down for me.”
Contact Chris Solari: [email protected]. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball: Jeremy Fears Jr. primed for 'a big jump'
Category: General Sports
