As Michigan State basketball's Jaden Akins crosses 1K point mark, he leads team by example

As Michigan State basketball’s Jaden Akins crosses 1K point mark, he leads team by example

Posted by Admin January 14, 2025 Basketball

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EAST LANSING — Jaden Akins stepped to the stripe, hoping to finish off Michigan State basketball’s game Sunday at Northwestern with a win.

A 23-point lead had been trimmed to single digits with under a minute to play. The senior made three trips to the line, calmly swishing each of his six free throws.

Ballgame.

In the days leading up to the 12th-ranked Spartans’ eventual 78-68 victory over the Wildcats, Akins heard he was approaching the 1,000-point mark. He didn’t care.

“Somebody told me I was kind of close by,” Akins said outside the locker room at Welsh-Ryan Arena. “I told him, ‘Don’t tell me how far I’m away.”

Akins entered the game needing 10 points to become the 57th player in MSU history to reach a grand. The two he hit with 34.6 ticks to play hit the milestone mark, the final four ensured his primary focus — a ninth straight victory.

The Farmington native called reaching the individual mark “a blessing” but preferred to focus on keeping the Spartans on track to chase their higher goals he helped set entering his final season.

“I just want my teammates to know I never get too high, never get too low” Akins, who finished with 14 points despite going 3-for-11 from the field, said after practice Monday. “In the midst of the games, in the moments, sometimes we’re doing a lot of good things and it’s easy to kind of think, ‘Oh, we’re just good for the rest of the game,’ even with a lot of game left. And then when you’re down, you can’t think you’re gonna be down ever, you gotta think can get out of it. So I feel just staying calm and level-headed helps a lot.”

MSU (14-2, 5-0) returns home atop the Big Ten standings as it prepares to host Penn State (12-5, 2-4) on Wednesday. Tipoff is 7:30 p.m. (Big Ten Network) at Breslin Center.

A big reason for the strong start — aside from the electric dunks of Coen Carr, the emergence of freshman Jase Richardson and the tenacity of point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. — has been the play and leadership from the poised, steady Akins.

The 6-foot-4 captain leads MSU’s well-rounded scoring effort with 14.1 points a game. And after a rough start from outside to begin the season for the second straight year, Akins shook off the slump and has drained 37.2% of his 3-point attempts over the past eight games. He hit two more in three attempts from deep Sunday despite his overall shooting struggles.

“It’s really important, because you have to have somebody at the end of the day that can keep your team focused and centered on what their goals are,” said Richardson, MSU’s second-leading scorer at 9.7 points per game. “So to have somebody like Jaden that can keep us poised in big moments is key.”

The last time MSU won nine straight was during Akins’ freshman year in 2021-22. The Spartans were 14-3 and 5-1 in league play at that point three years ago after beating Minnesota on Jan. 12, 2022. They would go on to lose the next game at home to Northwestern, beginning a downward spiral by losing 10 of their final 19 games to finish 23-13 overall and out of contention for a conference championship at 10-9.

It was a lesson that helped shape Akins as a leader this season, and something he wants his teammates to be cognizant of at this point of success.

“It’s helped a lot, just the experiences I’ve been through the first three years and just the different type of games I’ve been in,” Akins said. “I feel like it helps me throughout the games that I’m going through now. My freshman year, we got off to a hot start like that, and then it kind of started going downhill from there. So I want to just take that experience that I have from that and not do the same thing and just continue what we got going on.”

Fears, a redshirt freshman, said he and his younger teammates rely on both Akins’ knowledge of the game and understanding of their coach’s demands. It makes the veteran in some ways an Izzo translator to keep the team on track.

And he does so, Fears said, by not causing problems and not being overly demanding as he “keeps it simple.”

“Jaden obviously has been through and been around this rodeo, so he kind of know what to prepare us for,” Fears said. “And mentally to (get) ready for whatever comes.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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