1. Jeremy Fears Jr. played his best game at MSU in win over FAU
EAST LANSING – This was the first time I’ve seen Jeremy Fears Jr. entirely in control of a game at Michigan State. There might have been another. But it didn’t jump at me like this one did.
It was ball-on-a-string, game-at-his-finger-tips stuff in the Spartans’ 86-69 win over Florida Atlantic, during which Fears finished with 13 points, eight assists, one turnover and a blocked shot in 23 minutes.
He might have had 15 assists if the Spartans made more of the open shots he delivered them.
Fears has been mostly solid to good in his first season as MSU’s starting point guard, a season in which he’s coming off a significant recovery after being shot in the leg almost exactly a year ago.
Saturday, he was great. This performance was a sign he has other levels in him. It was his decision-making, his under-control changing pace, and a seemingly growing understanding of when to let it fly and create for himself.
There are lots of ways to measure great point guard play. One of them is that feeling in your gut that good things are going to happen when it’s in that point guard’s hands. There was no doubt MSU was going to get a good shot Saturday when Fears had the ball.
Fears afterward talked about how much last year was on his mind — recalling that he had 10 assists against Stony Brook and was just beginning to really come into his own. That game felt a lot like Saturday, he said.
“Don’t take anything for granted,” Fears said. “I played this game last year and then didn’t play again.”
Tom Izzo, who clearly enjoys coaching Fears, agreed that it was Fears’ best game at MSU.
“I pulled him up (off the bench) toward the end of the game and had him come back up and stand by me, and I told him I thought he took a major step today, because in those huddles, he was demonstrative, he was begging, he was prodding, he was after guys to play harder and check better,” Izzo said, his team heading into Christmas at 10-2. “If I looked at overall, how he played, the assists, eight to one (turnover), all those things, he was really good. If I took everything overall, that was his best game as a Spartan.”
2. Coen Carr changed this game – long before his 3
The only thing more exciting than a Coen Carr dunk at Breslin Center: A Coen Carr 3-pointer. His wide-open corner 3, on a driving dish from Jaden Akins (who’d passed a 3) put the Spartans ahead 77-59 and essentially sealed the game with 4:38 remaining Saturday. The reaction from Carr — and from Akins — was of someone who knew that was part of their arsenal and they’d been waiting to show it.
Wouldn’t that be a game-changer — if Carr started hitting 3s.
Long before he clinched the win, Carr change the game.
It’s hard to quantify what a fast-break Coen Carr dunk can mean to MSU’s team at Breslin. The energy his high-wire act brings to the building is worth more than just the two points.
That’s not new. What is new this year is how they’re coming, both his dunks and other buckets — with a step-through move off the dribble that he finishes on the break and in the half-court.
With the game tied 20-20 Saturday, Carr stepped by a defender and threw it down over another, as smooth and violent a move as you’ll see in basketball.
Less than a minute later, he stole the ball and took it the other way for another dunk and a 27-20 lead. Suddenly the Spartans had some measure of control and they never lost it.
Earlier, he had another step-through bucket, finishing with a shot off the glass. It’s become a go-to move — off the cut, drive and break — that’s made him so much more offensively than alley-oops and dunks directly off the catch.
“I’ve been working on it,” Carr said of his step-through move, and earlier saying the same about his 3-point shot. “I feel like I’ve always kind of had had that ability, but just being able to have the confidence in the game to use it, and have the reps and practice to use it. So I just had to put it in play.”
To get where he wants to go, the outside shot will have become a regular thing. But he’s already developed his game quite a bit without it.
His career-high 17 points, eight rebounds (second only to Jaxon Kohler’s 12 Saturday), five dunks — and 3-pointer — in 23 minutes were felt Saturday.
3. A number of interesting lineups for the Spartans
At times Saturday, MSU played Jaxon Kohler at center, Coen Carr at power forward, with Jeremy Fears, Tre Holloman and Jase Richardson in the backcourt. At other times, Richardson was the lone guard on the floor, running the point — which he did during four different stints — with 6-7 wing Frankie Fidler at shooting guard, Carr at small forward, with Xavier Booker and Kohler inside.
The Richardson-led lineups took a while to take hold. Some of that was because Fears was so good, his absence was noticed. But Richardson seemed to play the point more than he has in other games.
I can’t recall another MSU team with this much versatility and this many ways to attack an opponent — which was helpful against an FAU team that presented some matchup challenges.
The question is whether all of them are bearing fruit.
It’ll be worth a dig in the coming days to see which lineups are working best. The Fears lineups were always best Saturday. He finished a team-best plus-14 in the plus-minus category, followed by Jaden Akins, Szymon Zapala and Frankie Fidler, all plus-12. That alone is an imperfect stat. Here’s an example: MSU was plus-two with Carr in the game. And Carr is a big reason why MSU won as comfortably as it did.
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch or on BlueSky @GrahamCouch.
