Jeremy Fears Jr. did it again.
This season, the Michigan State star guard has been at the center of a number of plays that border the line of dirty.
Early in Sunday’s game against Michigan, Fears once again lifted his leg after a foul call and kicked Michigan’s Elliot Cadeau in the groin.
‘We’d like a basketball game to break out at some point,’ Michigan’s Dusty May told CBS’ Tracy Wolfson during a first-half timeout.
After the officials reviewed the play, Fears was assessed a dead-ball technical foul.
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo did not hold back with his opinions of Fears’ technical foul when asked about it by Wolfson during the CBS broadcast.
‘It’s all because of what happened earlier and now the microscope’s on him. And I don’t like that,’ Izzo said.
He expanded on Fears’ foul in his postgame news conference following the Spartans’ 90-80 loss to the Wolverines on Sunday by saying that he’s ‘sick of it being one-sided,’ according to Chris Solari of the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network. Izzo also mentioned that after re-watching it on tape, Michigan guard Elliot Cadeau pushed Fears in the back.
Some other notable examples of similar plays include him kicking Minnesota’s Langston Reynolds in the groin, for which he received a technical foul for in a 76-73 loss, and being called out by Michigan coach Dusty May for ‘dangerous’ plays in the first meeting between the two Big Ten rivals.
‘I go out every game and I play hard. I don’t intentionally try to hurt anyone,” Fears said after Michigan State’s game at Minnesota back in February, according to the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network. ‘I go out and play every game like it’s my last, because at one point it was my last. So I don’t take a game for granted. I don’t take a moment for granted. So I’m going to go out there and play as hard as I can every possession, every game.
‘Like at one point, I had basketball taken away from me, so something I love to do, I couldn’t do it for a whole year. So most people wouldn’t understand that. And that’s on them, I guess. At the end of the day, it doesn’t change who I am or what I do. I’m just go out there and play 150(%) no matter what.’