Jeremiah Fears looks like an NBA star in the making at Oklahoma

Jeremiah Fears should still be in high school right now. Instead, he’s powering Oklahoma’s undefeated start, and catching the NBA’s attention.

Jeremiah Fears should be thinking about who he wants to take to prom right now. With an Oct. 19 birthday, Fears was part of the high school class of 2025 until finalizing a daring plan to reclassify following his standout run on the Nike EYBL circuit over the summer.

“My goal is to play in the NBA,” Fears told ESPN on the day he committed to Oklahoma. It was a goal that couldn’t wait.

Fears was originally committed to Illinois, the state school for his hometown of Joliet, located about 45 miles Southwest of Chicago. The Illini were planning for Fears to come to campus for 2025-26, but there wasn’t really a spot for him this season after they took Lithuanian point guard Kasparas Jakucionis in May after already signing Arizona transfer Kylan Boswell.

As Fears re-opened his recruitment, he continued to lean on his local connections. Oklahoma head coach Porter Moser grew up in nearby Naperville before rising to national fame when he led Loyola Chicago to the Final Four in 2018. An assistant on staff, Armon Gates, was another Chicago native who knew Fears’ father from his own playing days.

Most importantly, the Sooners had an opening at point guard and were willing to let Fears drive the offense as one of the youngest players in college basketball. If Fears was going to put himself in the mix for the 2025 NBA Draft, he knew he had to show scouts what he could do with the ball in his hands.

A few months later, Oklahoma is now 11-0 to start the season, one of only four undefeated teams in the country. After being nowhere to be found on early NBA big boards entering the season, Fears is now establishing himself as a potential lottery pick — and it’s possible he could go much higher than that. Everything is going according to plan for the young guard, and he’s only starting to scratch the surface of what he could one day become.

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Fears always looked like he was going to be taller than his older brother, Jeremy Fears, who is now a sophomore point guard at Michigan State. It wasn’t until this year that his growth spurt really started to hit.

After measuring at 6’1 barefoot in the summer of 2023 at the Nike Elite 100 camp, Fears is currently listed at 6’4 at Oklahoma and looks every bit of it. Now blessed with NBA size for his position, Fears has been putting on a show all year as one of the most scintillating guards in the country despite also being one of the youngest.

Fears was at his best in his first matchup against a ranked team on Wednesday night. Facing off against Michigan on a neutral floor in Charlotte, the freshman guard consistently picked apart the Wolverines defense off the dribble, and punished them every time they went under a screen. With the Sooners trailing by three in the closing seconds, Fears sprinted to take a pitch off a dribble-handoff, and drained a three-pointer plus the foul from NBA range. He hit the free throw to win the game.

Fears finished with 30 points on 8-of-12 shooting from the floor, 3-of-4 shooting from three-point range, and 11-of-13 shooting at the foul line. He struggled with turnovers at times (five), but also added four assists and three rebounds in the win.

Oklahoma is putting an explicit amount of trust in one of the youngest players in the country, and he’s leading them to an unbeaten start. Fears has the highest usage rate of any freshman in DI at 32.9 percent. To put that in perspective, that number is slightly higher than what Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Doncic are carrying this season, and only behind Giannis Antetokounmpo and LaMelo Ball in terms of NBA players.

Despite shouldering such a huge load for the Sooners, Fears is operating at tremendous efficiency. He’s posting immaculate 62.9 percent true shooting, making him one of 11 players in the country with a usage rate over 30 and a TS% better than 60. The only other freshman in the country doing it is presumptive No. 2 pick Dylan Harper, and Fears ranks higher than him in both categories.

Fears is shooting 57.3 percent on two-pointers and 34.1 percent on three-pointers, both solid marks. His efficiency has really been driven by his ability to get to the foul line. His 57.7 free throw is a phenomenal mark for a freshman guard, and he’s shooting 85.9 percent when he gets to the charity stripe.

Fears rarely settles for a jumper with the ball in his hands despite having good shooting touch. He prefers getting downhill, where he showcases his tight handle, ability to change speeds, and general shiftiness. It’s impressive that he doesn’t shy away from contact despite being so young. He’s not the type of guard who will dunk on your head, but he does have real explosiveness in and out of his crossovers when attacking the basket.

Fears’ playmaking is also advanced. His 32.2 assist rate places him No. 56 in the country. There are only three other freshmen with a 32 percent assist rate right now, and it includes future lottery picks Jakucionis and BYU’s Egor Demin (the other is Baylor’s Robert Wright III).

Fears is already well-versed in knowing how to use his scoring gravity to set up easy scoring chances for his teammates. He rarely seems rushed with the ball in his hands and will string out his dribble until he has a clear passing lane. Lead guards just seem to be born with a level of passing vision that can’t really be learned or coached, and Fears has it.

Further developing as a shooter will put Fears over the top as an NBA prospect, and there are plenty of reasons to believe in his shot. Hitting 34 percent from three and 86 percent this early in his career is encouraging. Teams would like to see him take more than 7.5 threes per 100 possessions — a number that ranks below Harper and Jakucionis — but his hesitance doesn’t seem to stem from a lack of confidence, but rather a preference for getting to the cup.

Half of Fears’ 14 made threes have been self-created this year. Go under the screen and he’ll let it fly.

It’s important for a guard like Fears to have a suitable mid-range game, too, and there are some positive signs there as well. Fears has made 41.4% of his non-paint twos this year, and none of them have been assisted.

He knows how to link his dribble moves to get his defender off-balance before rising to fire. The fact that he’s equally adept at creating space with his handle or his strength is stunning for a player who just turned 18.

One of the clearest markers of future upside is a high steal rate in a young player. Fears shines there, too, with a 4.6 percent steal rate ranking No. 50 in America, and third for all freshmen guards behind future lottery pick V.J. Edgecombe of Baylor, and also Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner.

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Oklahoma has faced a pretty soft schedule so far. That’s about to change in the program’s first season in the SEC, with top-10 matchups at Alabama, at Auburn, home against Tennessee, at Florida, and home against Kentucky highlighting the early 2025 schedule.

If Fears keeps this up, there should be no cap on his potential draft stock. Right now, Cooper Flagg and Dylan Harper are locks to go No. 1 and No. 2 overall in the 2025 NBA Draft, but no one has emerged as the consensus favorite for the third overall pick. Fears can conceivably get there.

Fears’ numbers scream star upside. Operating at super high usage while also being an efficient scorer with a high assist rate and a high steal rate is enticing for any prospect, and particularly impressive for someone who should still be in high school right now. The best marker of upside is just being really productive at a really young age against older competition. Fears is nailing that so far. If he keeps it up when the schedule gets tougher, his dreams of being an NBA lottery pick this summer are going to become a reality.

Fears and his family had a vision for his future when he first started considering reclassifying. It’s all coming to fruition right now, and Oklahoma is undefeated because of it.