UNC basketball falls to Michigan State. What we learned from Tar Heels’ first loss

Michigan State’s Jeremy Fears Jr. was equal parts playmaker and ringmaster on Thanksgiving Day, whipping the Spartans fans who traveled to Fort Myers, Florida, over the holiday into a frenzy with every blow-by drive, pass and dunk.

The Michigan State faithful weren’t just treated to a show, but invited to be a part of the No. 11 Spartans’ 74-58 victory over No. 16 North Carolina (6-1) at the Fort Myers Tip-Off.

At one point in the second half, when UNC guard Luka Bogavac was fouled on a 3-pointer and went to the line, Fears and Bogavac bumped into each other. Incidental contact, it appeared. The Spartan point guard turned to Bogavac, telling him, “Don’t do that!”

A teammate stepped in to pull Fears back. He smiled and locked eyes with a fan in the crowd, nodding his head. He may as well have offered the spectator a playful wink.

So it’s no wonder that, when Fears was fouled on a late 3-pointer — a dagger cutting through a late push for the Tar Heels — the crowd erupted in glee. He kept them cheering, following that up with an assist on a fastbreak layup. That stretched Michigan State’s lead to double digits. UNC never recovered, suffering its first loss on the season.

The Tar Heels made a late push, cutting the deficit to three points midway through the second half, but that’s as close as they’d get as the Spartans, led by Fears’ 19 points, soon pulled away.

“He controls the game,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said. “He’s big, strong, plays under control... I felt like his presence out there on both ends of the floor really settled them. And he played a really good game tonight. I was very impressed.”

UNC started the season by stacking six wins for the first time since the 2016-17 campaign. The Tar Heels will have to wait for a bit longer for the seventh.

Here’s what we learned from North Carolina’s loss to Michigan State (7-0):

Spartans dominate on the boards

North Carolina entered Thanksgiving having outrebounded all of its opponents by a margin of seven or more.

It was evident pretty early on against the Spartans that continuing this trend would be a struggle for the Tar Heels. At one point midway through the first half, Michigan State had outrebounded UNC 11-4.

Veesaar missed a chance for a defensive rebound, instead batting the ball out of bounds. He clapped his hands in frustration, shaking his head. Senior guard Elijah Davis yelled from the bench to box out. His father, coach Davis, yelled “everyone has to come back!” to the team, bunching his hands together to emphasize the importance of everyone crashing the boards.

The team listened, and pretty soon, multiple stops and defensive rebounds helped fuel a brief 8-0 run for the Tar Heels.

But that didn’t last very long. The Spartans ended the game with 37 boards to UNC’s 30. Michigan State particularly excelled in defensive rebounding, pulling down 25 to North Carolina’s 18.

“We knew that it was going to be a physical game, and I do feel like we met that challenge at the beginning of the game,” coach Davis said. “It just goes back to being able to sustain it, and that’s something that this group has to do.”

Tar Heels struggle to contain Fears

The Spartans stormed back into the game with a 13-0 run late in the first half, powered in large part by Fears. The stellar point guard had four assists during that three-minute stretch and backed up his playmaking with plenty of trash talk.

Fears entered Thursday averaging a nation-high 10.4 assists per game and assist rate of over 50%. He showed exactly why on Tuesday evening, finishing with seven dimes to power his team and rile up the large legion of Spartans fans in the process. Fears also added his 19 points on 8-of-10 shooting.

His dribble drives routinely forced UNC to collapse. That exposed openings for his teammates to exploit when North Carolina failed to rotate or help on defense.

The highlight, of course, was his alley-oop to Carson Cooper, who finished with a nasty left-handed slam.

It would’ve been hard for any team, or any player, to stop Fears — especially with that kind of performance. Michigan State coach Tom Izzo called it Fears’ best all-around game.

But it still begs the question: what would UNC guard Seth Trimble have been able to do on Fears, if he was healthy?

Fouls hamstring UNC frontcourt

After he was whistled for a loose ball foul with just over seven minutes remaining in the first half, Veesaar was sent to the bench. He stayed there until halftime, watching as UNC relinquished a seven-point lead.

Reserve forward James Brown took Veesaar’s place, with fellow backup Zayden High also seeing some minutes late in the first half when Wilson picked up a second foul.

That bench-heavy rotation, which also included Jonathan Powell, struggled to contain the Spartans. High added a putback layup late in the first half that cut UNC’s deficit to three, but North Carolina didn’t get much bench production outside of that.

With a 3-pointer from Powell, the Tar Heels only mustered five bench points.

“I wouldn’t specifically single out the bench,” Davis said. “North Carolina’s North Carolina. We’re all a team.”

Veesaar and Wilson returned in the second half to combine for 19 points after halftime. Veesaar, at one point, went on a personal 9-0 run.

But it wasn’t enough to get the job done, especially with the Spartans’ 28 paint points in the second half alone.

“I talked about points in the paint going into the game... they shot 51%. That’s just not going to work,” Davis said. “And then our struggles being able to shoot the ball from the perimeter. So there’s a number of things that we’ve got to get better at, clean up and continue to become more consistent. And that comes from everybody on the team.”

This story was originally published November 27, 2025 at 6:48 PM.