The 2023 News-Gazette All-State boys' basketball Player of the Year: Fears comes full circle

Apr. 23—JOLIET — Jeremy Fears Jr.'s social media profiles all include the two-word phrase "Floor General."

It's the role Fears plays on the court.

A mindset he's embraced.

The kind of basketball the Joliet West guard believes leads to success.

So does Tom Izzo.

No surprise, then, the Michigan State coach was taken by Fears when he saw him play. The evaluation was simple, easy.

"It all started with leadership and toughness, and we value that," Izzo told The News-Gazette. "I think he's a great leader. I watched him lead his prep school at La Lumiere (Ind.). I watched him lead this year. Everybody talks about being a leader.

"The real ones are born leaders — the Magics and Mateen Cleaves and Dee Brown at Illinois. I think Jeremy Fears is one of those kind of guys. He's born to lead."

Fears will try to do that at Michigan State soon. An incoming freshman to a veteran team — with a veteran backcourt — with aspirations at Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors for himself and championships for the Spartans.

It's the next step for Fears, who started his high school career at Joliet West, transferred to La Lumiere when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and returned to the Tigers for his senior season. A successful one at that.

Fears affected Joliet West as a scorer and facilitator, putting up 19 points, six rebounds, six assists and two steals per game. He was uber-efficient doing so, shooting 59 percent overall, 41 percent from three-point range and 88 percent at the free-throw line.

All to lead the Tigers to 28 wins before a Class 4A sectional semifinal loss to Oswego East. Still enough for the 6-foot-2 guard to earn McDonald's All-America status and The News-Gazette's 2023 All-State Player of the Year.

"This season was incredible being able to finish where I started," Fears said. "This was the place I started and it really wasn't a place I wanted to leave, but because of the circumstances of COVID and what all happened, I had to make a decision to go to a prep school. That bettered me on and off the court, but coming back felt like it was the right thing to do for me. I wouldn't trade it for the world."

Putting in a good word

Jeremy Kreiger was named the Joliet West coach ahead of the 2019-20 season. The Tigers had won just five games the previous season, but the Joliet Central graduate knew he had a chance to turn the program around.

Knew that a teammate from his time playing for Bob Koskosky in the Joliet Township co-op days had a son about to be a freshman.

So Kreiger pled his case to Jeremy Fears Sr., who wanted his son to star in Joliet but was thinking about a prep school or one of the Chicago Public League powerhouses.

"I just asked him for one year," Kreiger said. "Give us one year to try and build something special. I'll teach him as much as I can and go from there."

The younger Fears wasted little time in making his presence known.

Eighth-grade graduation for Joliet West's feeder schools is only a couple days before summer basketball starts for the Tigers. Days removed from being a middle-schooler, Fears let his older teammates know that he could compete and he could lead.

"He knew he needed to set a different tone in the gym from day one," Kreiger said. "He started every game as a freshman at point guard, and he just played through his mistakes and grew through his opportunities. He's never wavered from that."

Fears said he did his learning as a high school freshman from Jamere Hill and considered the senior guard his mentor. Saw how he worked, stayed in the gym and pushed his teammates. Fears embraced the same and helped spark a one-year turnaround for the Tigers.

Joliet West was 29-4 and prepping for a sectional championship game against Aurora East when the remainder of the 2019-2020 season was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"My freshman year was an unforgettable moment," Fears said. "I don't think anybody really expected us to be that good, and we just came out and played hard every game. It felt like a something-to-prove year while still being one of the best teams in the area. It was just so sad it got cut short because of COVID."

Leaving his home state

The pandemic altered Fears' course. He didn't want to leave Joliet West, but a delayed 2020-21 IHSA season without a state tournament wasn't part of his plan.

"The plan was never to leave," Kreiger said. "When early schools were trying to get him to leave because they knew we were going to have a shortened season and masks, he didn't want to go. He literally closed the laptop on somebody one time."

But the ability to play a more full season at La Lumiere — and do so against top-level competition suiting up for the prep power — was too good an opportunity to ignore.

It was at La Lumiere, nestled in an isolated part of northwest Indiana, that Fears saw what he needed to do to truly elevate his game. To go from an intriguing college prospect to a no-doubt high-major star.

"It made me realize there's a lot of other great players around the world and that I needed to work 10 times harder if I wanted to get to where I'm going," Fears said, mentioning matchups against Kennedy Chandler and Keyonte George. "It just opened my eyes and made me realize I could get a lot better."

The return to Joliet West

The conclusion of Fears' second season at La Lumiere initiated conversations with his family about how he'd wrap up his high school career.

Sticking with the Lakers and playing a national schedule again was always an option. But so was coming home to play one season with his younger brother, Jeremiah, and finish what he started.

"I just knew there was a place in my heart that wanted me to come back home and be with my family and friends," Fears said.

It was a seamless transition for Fears back to Joliet West. Mostly because, as Kreiger put it, he was never really gone.

Every holiday break meant a trip back home. Summertime not on the AAU circuit meant getting in the gym or the weight room with Kreiger.

"While I told a lot of people he left, he didn't actually leave," the Joliet West coach said. "His home has always been Joliet. He was born and raised here. While sometimes he's classified as a transfer, he's not. He's always been a Joliet kid just handling business in a different area code for certain portions of the year."

Fears handled business in Joliet this past season, leading the Tigers to a 28-6 record. He did so by becoming the type of offensive threat that didn't come naturally for him, like it did for his younger brother.

Fears' core strengths were his ball-handling, his basketball IQ, his ability to run a team offensively and be the tip of the spear defensively. The only real questions marks centered around his jumper.

"We never knew where his shot was going to be, and that's why his recruitment was so slow early in his career," Kreiger said. "Everyone was nervous about his jump shot."

Refining Fears' jump shot became a primary focus heading into the 2022-23 season. That it happened successfully, Kreiger said, was because Fears embraced that he had to be more of a scoring threat.

"The days of Rajon Rondo and Elfrid Payton — the guys we studied to try and teach him — that doesn't work anymore," Kreiger said. "You have to be a combo guard. Not everybody has to be Trae Young or Steph Curry or Damian Lillard, but you at least have to be serviceable at the one."

Kreiger and Fears actually studied how former Morgan Park and Illinois star Ayo Dosunmu tackled similar questions about his jump shot to improve it and become known as a proven scorer outside of transition opportunities. Form shooting, free throws and spot shooting for hours was the process.

Fears knew it wasn't long before he'd be off to Michigan State. He wanted to be sharp and ready to compete at that level.

"It was hard; it was long," Fears said of his workouts. "You have to stay really consistent and motivated. Coming to work before and after practice was really big. Still shooting when you were tired and didn't feel like it was really big."

Opportunity knocks

Fears is set to join a Michigan State team coming off a 21-13 season that saw the Spartans finish fourth in the Big Ten and outlast the other teams in the conference as the only one to reach the NCAA men's tournament's Sweet 16.

The 2023-24 Spartans project to be a veteran bunch, too, with the bulk of the roster set to return, including guards Tyson Walker, AJ Hoggard, Jaden Akins and Tre Holloman.

"He understands he's got to go in and really compete with guys who are well-seasoned," Kreiger said. "He was always, in my opinion, projected to be a Big Ten player. I'm excited to see his growth through the challenges of college. Because he's a competitor, just see what he does against Illinois and those other schools who didn't think he was going to be good enough."

Fears isn't worried about the level of competition waiting for him in the Michigan State backcourt. He simply intends to attack his opportunity in East Lansing, Mich., the same way he always has.

"Keep being the leader I am," he said. "Just always trying to lead whether I'm on the bench or on the floor or in the locker room."