EAST LANSING – Tom Izzo continues to marvel at the rapid recovery Jeremy Fears Jr. has made from a December gunshot wound.
Yet the Michigan State basketball coach found himself realizing recently his redshirt freshman still has work ahead to get back to where he was before taking a bullet to the leg.
This week’s trip to the Maui Invitational represents another step and test for Fears in his return – a 10-hour flight, followed by three games in three consecutive days against elite competition, then another long trip home.
“The physical part of it is something we’re going to have to manage a little bit. He’s going to have to talk to us, we’re going to have talk to him,” Izzo said Thursday before the team left for Hawaii. “There’s no question when you play three games in three days, that’s always an issue for the most talented, in shape guys.”
The Spartans (4-1) flew to Maui on Friday and open play Monday against Colorado (4-0). Tipoff is at 5 p.m. ET at Lahaina Civic Center (ESPN2). The field also includes two-time defending national champion No. 2 Connecticut, which opens the tournament against Memphis at 2:30 p.m. ET. The winners of those two games meet at 6 p.m. ET Tuesday, while the two first-game losers tip at 3:30 p.m.
For Fears, it will be the first chance he’s had to play for a championship since his senior year at Joliet West High in Illinois. MSU played a single-game, one-off Thanksgiving event last year against Arizona. The former four-star point guard was shot in the early morning hours of Dec. 23 in his hometown after returning for Christmas break.
Fears missed the rest of the season – including the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments – after undergoing a three-hour surgery to remove the bullet from his upper left leg, returning to the court in the early summer and getting back to competition in MSU’s three-game, 10-day August trip to Spain.
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“It’s really a mental thing,” Fears said after practice Thursday. “I practice three days in a row, so practice is hopefully harder than the games. So it’s just being able to go out there and be ready. Obviously, I’ll do my rehab and recovery before and after the game, so it’s just making sure I’m taking care of my body and still going as hard as I can to try and get a win.”
After being granted a redshirt by the NCAA over the summer for the 2023-24 season, Fears immediately took over as starting point guard this season with the departures of A.J. Hoggard to transfer (Vanderbilt) and Tyson Walker’s graduation. Through five games, the 6-foot-2, 190-pound Fears is averaging 6.2 points, 6.2 assists and 1.2 rebounds in 20.8 minutes per game, splitting point guard duties with junior Tre Holloman and freshman Jase Richardson. Fears is 8-for-20 from the floor and 14-for-18 at the free-throw line, adding six steals and a block as his lateral quickness on defense continues to improve.
Still, in MSU’s gritty 83-75 home win Tuesday over Samford, Izzo did not feel like Fears was at peak capacity and played him a season-low 13 minutes. He missed his only shot, finishing with two points on free throws, and dished out four assists but committed three early turnovers. That came after committing five turnovers with his season-high 10 points in 21 minutes of a tough win against Bowling Green three days earlier.
Which makes the trip to Maui a good barometer to see how Fears will hold up with Big Ten play around the corner, with the Spartans opening Dec. 4 at Minnesota.
“Just last week, I told him that I thought it’d be the middle of December to Christmas before he gets his sea legs back after eight, nine months off,” Izzo said. “It’s coming, and he’s played better. Hopefully now, we’ll see where he is.”
Fears said he is eager to see in Maui how he matches up against more elite competition. Against No. 1 Kansas in the Champions Classic on Nov. 12, he had nine points on 3-for-8 shooting with six assists, three rebounds, two steals and two turnovers. He also faced Duke and Arizona last year and played in conference games against Wisconsin and Nebraska before the shooting.
“Really just (seeing) how much I’ve grown and how much I got better from last year,” he said.
The point guard depth Holloman and Richardson provide behind Fears gives the Spartans the ability to rest and rotate each at multiple spots that Izzo has not had to run his team very often in his career.
“Obviously, I can go out there and give everything. I know I have guys that can come in and help me and even bring more intensity and energy to the game,” Fears said of the trio. “So there’s obviously strength in numbers. Like coach says, we got a lot of guys. We can play everybody and not have no drop off, we actually pick up.”
Richardson’s sprained ankle he suffered against Samford also adds a wrinkle of complexity into Izzo’s point plans for the Maui Invitational – in a field which also features No. 3 Auburn, No. 5 Iowa State, No. 14 North Carolina and Dayton. The combo guard is expected to be ready for Monday’s opener, though Izzo admitted he and his staff will be monitoring both Fears and Richardson.
“We’re going to go in and try to see what we can do,” Izzo said. “There’s going to be some good teams that kind of come back 1-2, and there’s going to be one or two good teams that could come back 0-3. And that’s the way it is in this tournament.”
Maui Invitational schedule
Monday
Memphis vs. No. 2 Connecticut, 2:30 p.m.
MSU vs. Colorado, 5 p.m. (ESPN2)
No. 3 Auburn vs. No. 5 Iowa State, 9 p.m. (ESPNU)
Dayton vs. No. 14 North Carolina, 11:30 p.m. (ESPN2)
Tuesday
Memphis-UConn loser vs. MSU-Colorado loser, 3:30 p.m. (ESPN2)
Memphis-UConn winner vs. MSU-Colorado winner, 6 p.m. (ESPN)
Auburn-Iowa State loser vs. Dayton-UNC loser, 8:30 p.m. (ESPNU)
Auburn-Iowa State winner vs. Dayton-UNC winner, 11 p.m. (ESPN)
Wednesday
Fifth-place game, 2:30 p.m. (ESPN or ESPN2)
Championship game, 5 p.m. (ESPN)
Third-place game, 9:30 p.m. (ESPN2)
Seventh-place game, midnight (ESPN2)
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball: Maui trip tests Jeremy Fears Jr.’s recovery
