Chris Jans explains how Andrew Taylor's transfer portal recruitment ended so quickly

The NCAA transfer portal has changed how recruiting works in both college football and college basketball and many coaches are still having a tough time adjusting. Mississippi State hoops coach Chris Jans has had a good deal of portal success but even he admits it’s been a real change.

The issue is that timelines have become greatly condensed, which means things move 100 miles an hour seemingly at all times.

“Not every case is the same but in a lot of these situations if you’re not on him the day they hit the portal and you’re not ready to make a decision on offering a kid or bringing him in right away you’re behind,” Jans explained.

The good news for the Bulldogs is that Jans has figured that out quickly.

Star Marshall scorer Andrew Taylor entered the NCAA transfer portal on May 8. Five days later he was committed to Mississippi State.

“We had some guys in our staff that had previous relationships with Andrew and his family, so that maybe gave us a leg up from the jump,” Jans said.

Andrew Taylor averaged 20.2 points and 4.7 assists per game last season for the Thundering Herd and figures to be a major addition to the Mississippi State backcourt for the 2023-24 season.

His recruitment out of the NCAA transfer portal was an example of exactly what Jans is talking about when it comes to the shift coaches have had to make.

“What we’ve learned is in this portal recruiting where kids have been there, done that, they’ve had visits, they’ve had to make decisions, they understand what college basketball is like and not everyone’s like this, but they’re making decisions quickly,” Jans said.

“To be honest with you for me I’ve had to make a serious adjustment because I’m not a quick decision-maker when it comes to recruiting. I like to dive into it and really evaluate their play, get to know who they are in terms of background, phone calls with people in the business that I know or we know and that is more familiar with the particular situation than we are.”

Jans has been burned in the past in the transfer portal.

“I’ve drug my feet, not because my staff, but because of me in some situations since I’ve been here that, in my opinion, have cost us opportunities to add quality recruits to our program because of that mindset of the old way of kind of taking your time and really getting deep into the evaluation process that we go through,” he said.

“I’ve had to adjust and our staff has had to adjust along with it. We were able to, like you said, get in there real early. You just never know how they’re going to unfold. Everyone has a different idea of what they’re looking for when they enter the portal or any recruiting situation. Usually their plan never gets to fruition in terms of ‘I’m going to take this many visits or that many visits.’ It usually doesn’t work out that way. They usually have more visits lined up or thinking about lining up and then they just, they’re done with it and they make their decision. Fortunately for us it worked out.”