Chris Jans discusses seeing his team pull away late in games

Mississippi State pulled out a 74-68 win over South Carolina on Tuesday, pulling away late for the second straight game. For coach Chris Jans, seeing his team pull away late is a big confidence booster.

It means they’ve learned how to win late.

“It’s a good characteristic to have for a basketball team,” Jans said. “It’s something that we’ve kind of been there, done that now. There’s no panic in our huddles, on our bench. These games are long, there’s a lot of possessions, a lot of things can happen.”

Mississippi State has now won eight of its last 10 games, with the two losses in that stretch coming by one possession in overtime and one possession in regulation.

The Bulldogs are learning how to play in close games. Not just play in them, but win them.

“When you get those opportunities and you take advantage of them, it just gives you confidence the next time you’re in them that, hey, we’ve been there done that,” Jans said. “We can do this.”

So what, practically speaking, does Jans coach his team up on in the huddle?

Believe it or not there isn’t some secret message he’s found that unlocks all the right responses to allow his team to pull away late. It’s just a matter of taking care of business all the way around.

“We didn’t even talk about that kind of stuff,” Jans said. “We just talked about working on guarding this player, that player, what we want to run offensively, or what we need to shore up defensively. Just kind of stuck with the process and kept grinding away. In the end I really felt we had four or five defensive possessions that we were really handsy, got after the ball and really changed the tenor of the game.”

Mississippi State will wrap up its regular season tonight with a game against Vanderbilt that will tip off at 8:30 p.m. ET on the SEC Network.