Chris Jans credits efforts of Tyler Stevenson for Mississippi State

Following a five-game losing streak, Mississippi State continued to build off of their upset victory against TCU with three straight wins, their latest being a 63-52 victory over Missouri. Bulldogs forward Tyler Stevenson provided the team with a spark and 10 points off the bench in Saturday’s game. He’s been thriving in the role of the teams sixth man lately, which head coach Chris Jans spoke about following the win.

“He’s playing really well for us, he’s giving us that spark,” Jans said. “We talked about Shaq coming off the bench earlier and giving us a spark and now that he’s a starter Tyler’s almost assumed that role, not that we could’ve predicted that.”

Jans made a change to his rotation recently, inserting Shakeel Moore into the starting lineup in their last four games. Moore previously was tasked with igniting the team’s offense off of the bench, but Stevenson has done his part in picking up the slack in the team’s bench production.

“He obviously didn’t play as well in the fall and I knew he could make shots for us and you can see he can defend, and rebound, and compete at a high level. And you know when miss shots like that it’s really easy to lose confidence, but he’s playing with his confidence now,” Jans said.

Stevenson only scored in double figures twice this season, until the team’s recent three-game winning streak. He’s scored in double figures in the team’s last three games, averaging 10.6 points per game during the stretch on an impressive 56.6% shooting from the field. He’s also made numerous highlight dunks in the process that have brought a ton of excitement and energy to the team, a team that has a special place in his heart.

“I couldn’t be more happy for him, he’s obviously a local kid that’s living out somewhat of a dream to play for Mississippi State a team that he grew up watching. He was having a great career at Southern Miss in our state and then he was able to come back for one year,” Jans said. “Now for him to be so happy, he’s not a kid who smiles a ton but he does when he makes the big plays and he lets his emotion out and I love seeing him when he does that.”

The Columbus native has surely thrived lately in his new role, and it will be interesting to see if he can keep in going in Mississippi State’s next game versus LSU on Wednesday.