ROSEMONT, Ill. (AP) — Michigan State guard Jeremy Fears has been named the Big Ten Preseason Player of the Year.

The fourth-year player was selected on Monday by the conference’s coaches and a media panel, coming off a season that earned him second-team All-America and All-Big Ten recognition. Fears was a unanimous selection for the preseason all-conference team along with Nebraska's Pryce Sandfort.

The All-Big Ten preseason team also includes David Mirkovic and Andrej Stojakovic of Illinois, Maryland's Pharrell Payne, Elliot Cadeau and Trey McKenney of defending champion Michigan, John Mobley of Ohio State, UCLA's Trent Perry, Rodney Rice of USC and Wisconsin's Nolan Winter.

Fears led college basketball with 9.4 assists a game and averaged a team-high 15.2 points for the Spartans as a redshirt sophomore last season. He set the school's NCAA Tournament record with 16 assists in a second-round win against Louisville, surpassing the mark set by former Michigan State superstar Magic Johnson, and finished with a single-season school record with 328 assists.

He declared for the draft, but chose to return to chase a national championship with a team that might have a shot to end the season at the Final Four in Detroit.

Fears was limited to 12 games in his first season of college basketball after being shot in the leg when he went back home to Joliet, Illinois, for 2023 holiday break.

His brother, Jeremiah Fears, is entering his second NBA season with New Orleans Pelicans after they drafted the former Oklahoma star with the No. 7 overall pick last year.

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