Michigan State has collected two wins over Top 25 opponents in the first month of the season.The 17th-ranked Spartans will now look to remain undefeated while participating in the Fort Myers (Fla.) Tip-Off tournament this week.They’ll have a Tuesday afternoon matchup with unranked East Carolina before a Thanksgiving Day showdown with another traditional powerhouse, No. 18 North Carolina.Michigan State (5-0) has recorded quality victories over Arkansas and Kentucky. The Spartans followed up their 83-66 thumping of the Wildcats last Tuesday with an 84-56 victory over Detroit Mercy on Friday.However, coach Tom Izzo wasn’t particularly pleased with his team’s latest outing.”We had a great practice (Thursday) and I thought that’s one of the things they’re learning is how to do — good practices that lead to good games. It’s like studying for the test, then you got to take the test,” Izzo said. “We studied pretty good for the test. I didn’t think we did a very good job, and that doesn’t take anything away from what they’d done.”We just missed, I mean, we airballed some wide-open shots. If you ask me, the guy that should be upset should be (Jeremy) Fears, not me. He would have had 15, 16 assists (Friday) if they just hit regular shots.”Fears still finished with a strong stat line. He had 18 points and 11 assists in 28 minutes with only one turnover.Fears is averaging a double-double at 11.8 points and 10.4 assists.”I’m going to always want more out of Jeremy because that’s me,” Izzo said. “But those numbers are about as good as any guard I’ve had here in a while. And his total numbers, they weren’t against all creampuffs. They were against good teams.”Jaxon Kohler leads the Spartans in scoring (15.2 points per game) and rebounding (9.8).
