Mississippi State overwhelmed by Kentucky's skill, depth: "So many facilitators and playmakers"

Mississippi State coach Chris Jans will admit he wasn’t really expecting what he saw out of Kentucky inside Rupp Arena in the midweek road matchup. The Bulldogs entered the matchup ranked No. 9 in defensive efficiency, No. 12 in three-point defense, No. 16 in effective field goal percentage defense, No. 27 in steal percentage, No. 28 in field-goal percentage defense and No. 37 in scoring defense.

Then they gave up 47 points and five made 3-pointers in the first half while scoring just 29.

It led to a “fairly intense” halftime speech, according to the second-year head coach.

“We were obviously disappointed with the results of the first half. Just surprised at our lack of urgency, if you will,” Jans said. “We’ve got some veteran guys who have been there, done that. We really thought we could lean on them a little bit going into this type of environment and we just didn’t.

“We were on our heels and not on our toes and let them dictate everything, got behind, and just couldn’t wait to get to halftime.”

Offensively, things got a little bit better for the Bulldogs after the break. They opened the second half on a 14-2 run and cut the deficit to just six after trailing by as many as 20. Then the Wildcats snapped out of it and scored 43 to close out the 90-77 win.

MSU hadn’t ever given up 90 points in a game under Jans. It only allowed 80 twice this season, but no more than 82. The Bulldogs just hadn’t experienced anything like this. That’s how they earned their ugliest loss of the season.

And there’s a reason for it.

“They just have so many facilitators and playmakers,” Jans said of Kentucky. “They have two guys who come off the bench who can start on a lot of college basketball teams across the country at any level. What a luxury it is to have four guys at the guard position that are interchangeable but are all a little different, but really good basketball players in their own right.

“Then to see that they like each other and share the ball can really spread you out. They can shoot the ball so well from the three, then have guys who can get downhill, then they have lob threats behind the defense and put a lot of pressure on defensively.”

If his top-10 defensive team can’t slow down the Cats, who can?

We’ll let you know when we find out.