Chris Jans ‘embarrassed’ by Mississippi State performance vs. Missouri

The Missouri Tigers went into Starkville and beat the Mississippi State Bulldogs by 27 points in a game that was never particularly close. It was one of the worst losses suffered this season by Mississippi State and left head coach Chris Jans feeling embarrassed by his team’s performance.

After the game, Jans shared some of his frustrations with how his team played in the loss. In particular, he was frustrated with his team’s effort, or lack thereof, throughout the game and in front of the home fans.

“We just got beat in every category,” Chris Jans said. “That’s just the bottom line. I told the team since I’ve arrived, our staff has arrived, we played, I don’t know off the top of my head, I’m guessing we’ve played 50-plus games in the Hump. It’s got to be around there. We’ve had some tough nights, and we’ve had some tough losses. We haven’t won every game that we’ve played at home, but I don’t ever remember that feeling that I had this afternoon. I was embarrassed for all of us.”

In a game that ended 88-61, Missouri made 55 percent of its shots compared to just 36.4 percent from Mississippi State. Missouri also outrebounded Mississippi State, snagging 39 boards compared to just 31 from the Bulldogs. That helped offset the fact that Mississippi State had double the number of free throws that Missouri did.

“It starts with me. It’s my responsibility to have the pulse and get them ready to go,” Jans said. “Either via game planning or just motored up and motivated. Obviously, we weren’t. In the first couple of possessions of the second half, if you go back and look, we had some guys that got after the ball in a different mindset than they did the whole first half. That’s where I told them, ‘The cat was out of the bag, what were we waiting for? Do you think at 4-4 in the SEC and coming off a tough game against Alabama that we were just going to show up and win because we weren’t playing a top 10 team?'”

The loss was the second in a row and third in four games for Mississippi State as the Bulldogs have hit a rough spot in SEC play. With that, they’ve fallen to 4-5 in conference play, which is tied for ninth in the conference standings.

“I feel awful for our fan base, for the administration, for everybody that loves Bulldog basketball. It was an awful feeling,” Jans said. “And I never want to have it again. We’re going to do what we’ve got to do to make sure that it never happens again.”

Chris Jans and the Bulldogs will look to bounce back on Saturday when they hit the road to play the Georgia Bulldogs.