Jeremy Fears Jr. Named Big Ten Preseason Player of the Year

The expectations for Michigan State guard Jeremy Fears Jr. continue to grow at an absurd level.

The latest stop on the preseason hype train comes in the form of the Big Ten Preseason Player of the Year award.

The award speaks for itself: the best player in the entire Big Ten conference. Eighteen teams. Hundreds of players. Yet it’s the standout guard playing in East Lansing who received the nod before the games even tipped off.

Pressure makes diamonds, and if Fears wants to be the biggest and baddest diamond on the court, he’ll have to handle the pressure that comes along with it.

We already know Fears is a top-end talent. College basketball fans around the country watched in amazement as he controlled the ball last season. He not only led the Spartans in scoring, but also in assists.

However, it wasn’t just the 2025-26 Spartans he led in assists.

Fears shattered Michigan State’s single-season assists record last year, finishing with 328 assists. That was 17 shy of Purdue’s Braden Smith, who set the NCAA single-season record last season.

Fears is already off to a strong start in that category.

While the stats from Michigan State’s 89-59 victory over Incarnate Word on Friday ultimately don’t matter, Fears still finished with a game-high 13 assists. And he did it seemingly even more nonchalantly than he did last season.

Opposing teams know Fears will be a problem and will likely do everything they can to limit his abilities. But with the Spartans’ roster primed from top to bottom, putting an extra defender on Fears could simply open the floor for more opportunities for his teammates.

It’s a fickle position for opposing teams to be in.

The Spartans haven’t entered a season with this level of hype since finishing the 2017-18 season as a No. 3 seed and entering the following season with Final Four expectations. Michigan State ultimately fell to No. 15 Middle Tennessee in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

With high expectations, the fall comes even harder, which is something Tom Izzo and Fears will be trying to avoid.

Michigan State hasn’t made a Final Four appearance since 2019, but this year would be cinematic. The Final Four is returning to Michigan, with the event being hosted at Ford Field in Detroit.

Fears already sits atop the Wooden Award betting market, showing that the expectations extend far beyond the Big Ten. He isn’t simply expected to be one of the best players in the conference. He is expected to be one of the best players in the entire country.

Fears had the opportunity to enter the NBA Draft this season but chose to return to college. Now, he’ll look to piggyback off an incredibly successful 2025-26 season and turn it into something even more special.

For Fears, though, the accolades are fun.

Winning is what drives him.

He and the Spartans have lofty expectations, and he’ll need to handle them with dignity.

Last season, Fears was put under excruciating scrutiny after a few errant kickouts turned into controversial incidents that had the national media asking whether Fears was playing dirty.

His response was immediate.

He stopped the move and continued producing, answering the criticism with even more points and assists and proving that wasn’t the true identity of his game.

Now, he’ll have to ride the highs and lows of another season while making sure both he and his team are prepared for what could be the biggest Michigan State season in terms of expectations in quite some time.

The hype is already here.

Now comes the pressure.