Michigan State has its own Grayson Allen: How Jeremy Fears keeps getting away with it

Michigan State's Jeremy Fears has been one of the better guards in the country this season, averaging 15.3 points and a nation's-best 9.1 assists to just 2.2 turnovers while playing over 30 minutes a game for a Spartans squad that's destined for a top-3 seed at minimum in the NCAA Tournament. But once March Madness begins later this month, Fears is as likely to become a household name for his talent as he is for ... well, let's just call it "questionable" style of play.

Fears once found himself at the center of controversy during MSU's loss to arch rival Michigan on Sunday afternoon, when he was whistled for a technical foul for a possibly intentional kick below the belt to Wolverines guard Elliot Cadeau.

If this were an isolated incident, it would be easy enough to write off as a fluke or an accident; who knows, maybe Fears was just trying to regain his balance while fighting off contact and keeping his dribble alive. The problem is that this is far from an isolated incident. Heck, this isn't even the most egregious act Fears has pulled against Michigan this season. And if he keeps it up, it won't be long before the whole country is side-eying him.

Michigan State's Jeremy Fears: Dirty player or just misunderstood?

Fears first earned the ire of fans back in early February, when it sure seemed like he tried to trip Michigan star Yaxel Lendeborg.

At least Wolverines head coach Dusty May thought so. “They're not isolated incidents," May said after the game, accusing not just Fears but multiple Spartans of dangerous play. “The film is there. Forty minutes of it, it's not hard to find."

But Fears was far from done. Just a few days later, in a game at Minnesota, Fears swung his leg at the groin of the Gophers' Langston Reynolds — one of several incidents in which the point guard appeared to be stretching the bounds of fair play (to put it mildly).

That final kick to Reynolds, in particular, looks a whole lot like the play involving Cadeau on Sunday, which makes it awfully hard to give Fears any kind of benefit of the doubt.

His head coach, however, still has his back. Tom Izzo is no stranger to tough love, and he's at times reprimanded Fears publicly, saying that the latter needed to "grow up a little bit" and even floating the idea of benching him for at least a portion of a game. But when push comes to shove, Izzo has come to Fears' defense; on Sunday, he told CBS' Tracy Wolfson that the technical foul had more to do with his player's reputation than the play itself.

Izzo can plead Fears' innocence all he wants, but the video doesn't lie, and surely it can't be a coincidence that Fears is more or less the only player in the country that has to deal with this problem on a regular basis. This is clearly a problem, one that Michigan State hasn't been able to or has just refused to adequately address. And it could become a hot-button topic with the NCAA Tournament around the corner.

March Madness will put a brighter spotlight on Jeremy Fears than ever before

March Madness turns nobodies into folk heroes and stars into household names. For two weeks, everyone in the country has their eyes turned toward college hoops, and every single thing is magnified.

Which could spell trouble for both Fears and his team. Despite the loss on Sunday, the Spartans are still projected as either a No. 2 or No. 3 seed in just about every expert projection, with the potential to climb as high as the No. 1 line if they manage to upset Michigan and win the Big Ten Tournament title next weekend. With Fears at the helm and a typically ferocious defense, MSU has a real shot at a Final Four run.

But Fears' reputation threatens to short-circuit that in an instant. At this point, you better believe that any official calling a Michigan State game will know the book on Fears and have their eyes on him well after the whistle blows. That could result in more technicals that could flip a game and cost the Spartans their season, not to mention the off-court distraction it would create once casual fans (and talking heads on television) get a glimpse of what diehards have been yelling about for weeks.

If Fears were going to change his style of play, he would've by now. It's hard not to see him in the same sort of vein as a former Spartan, Draymond Green, who seemed to be physically incapable of not pushing the envelope and endangering his opponents. It's one thing to do it in the regular season; it's quite another to do it in March.