Head coach Chris Jans talks McNeese State, defensive lapses and Cam Matthews

Mississippi State gets a few days off from competition this week, which may be a good thing to allow some bumps and bruises to heal. The 25th-ranked Bulldogs (8-1) return to action Saturday in Tupelo with a 5 p.m. tipoff against McNeese State (5-4).

On Tuesday, Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans met with the media to discuss McNeese State among other topics:

Q: What differences do you see in McNeese State this year compared to last year?
Jans: We didn’t play them last year so I really didn’t know their team last year and not familiar with their team last year. Just getting a deeper dive on them now but a lot of medium-sized, good-looking athletes that are strong and been around and experienced. They’re very physical, play really hard and a well-coached basketball team. They get to the line. They rebound the ball and they play a lot of guys.

They’ve been prepared. They’ve played good competition and they’ve played really good programs. So they’ve kind of seen and been there, done that already in the still-early stage of the season.

Q: What did you see from a defensive end of things against Prairie View that needs to be cleaned up?
Jans: Unfortunately, I always sound like a broken record. In simple terms we weren’t very good at the point of attack. It’s something we stress and talk about and drill every day. Our breakdowns were just 1 on 1 with either putting to much pressure on the ball outside the scoring area, getting at an angle in a tough situation or having two guys come together in a ball-screen situation and not being on the same page in terms of our coverage, our communication, our foot angles.

We set ourselves up to fail that way. Then when that breaks down you got to rely on your positioning off the ball. We talk about strong and weak in the gaps and help with those exact words in our vocabulary. We were just off. We weren’t in solid positioning off the ball. You can over help and give up a corner 3 or we weren’t strong enough in our help when the ball got driven from the sides of the floor. So we were late. Without being able to take charges if you are late in those situations, the ball handler has the advantage and just splits you. We gave up way too many of those.

They earned it but it’s like anything, their confidence grew. They scored early and we were up 6-2 and then it was 8-7. We were down and their confidence grew and you could see it. We were a big reason why they did that. A lot of people will say they just made shots. They didn’t make as many shots against some other teams. They did make a couple of contested shots and you tip your hat and go to the other end. But we didn’t do as good of a job of making them miss and it’s something we’ve got to get better at.

Q: Is this team better or worse defensively than you originally thought going into the season?
Jans: We know where we’re at and what’s effective and what’s not from a numbers’ perspective, analytically. But I don’t have in my mind ‘okay, I want to be Top 20 or Top 50 in this area or that area’. So I really didn’t have expectations for that. But as hard as it was to admit in the summer and in the fall, I had conversations with my staff that we’re not going to be as good, defensively, on paper as we’ve been the first two years. We’re not built the same. We’re just not.

As we got to know our players and personalities and their mindsets and how they work and function, it just didn’t look like it was going to be that way. But I said we were going to be a much better offensive team, on paper, than we’ve had. Unfortunately or fortunately, I turned out to be correct that way because our offense is much better in terms of efficiency, in terms of effectiveness.

But our defense has lagged behind if you compare it to the first two teams that we’ve had. I like that challenge on a personal level. We’re going to see if our players like that challenge. I thought we had made some big strides with the Pittsburgh game and howe rallied and played so well. But again, we talked about it the last time we were in this room and that came into play. That will continue to come into play because we’re not going to play in front of our home crowd every time we play basketball. So we’re going to have to be motivated by other things.

Q: What’s it like playing in those neutral-site atmospheres like Tupelo?
Jans: It’s just a different feel. It’s a different feel from playing a true road game and a different feel from playing at The Hump. But once you get a year or two under your belt as a player, and certainly after you get a few years under your belt as a coach, you understand you play the game in all sorts of different venues. Some small, some with thousands and thousands and some with under a hundred folks that come watch the game.

The best focus and not be too much concerned about that and playing and coaching your game. But we’ve had experience up there already and we played in Tupelo last year and had a great crowd against a North Texas team. I would hope and expect we have as good or better of a crowd this year with McNeese and Will Wade coming into town on a Saturday afternoon on national television. It was a good experience at the other places you mentioned like Southaven and Jackson. They’ve all been good experiences for our team so far.

Q: With KeShawn Murphy, was there a moment this summer where you saw he was a different player this year?
Jans: I wish I had a great response or story about that but it’s more just his body of work. You go through the summer workouts and even the fall, certainly as a coaching staff we talk about that day’s work and who looked good. There’s an excitement up in our office about the consistency of Murphy’s daily approach and his productivity, more importantly. We stat everything and we share it with our players. We post it and they know what they’re shooting, what they’re not, how they are rebounding percentage-wise, turnovers, assists and all the things we look at during a game.

He was just a leader amongst our team all summer long. Everybody could sense it, everybody could see it. The players, they all knew he was going to have a breakout year if he can get practice on the floor.

You didn’t ask me about it but he didn’t have as good of a game against Prairie View. But he just had some bad luck, to be honest with you. As I watched the film, he had two fouls in how many ever minutes he was on the floor and man, they were tough. There was a layup and he came in there late to attempt to shield maybe and his hands didn’t get up. He may have touched the guy and it looked like a foul and I know why they called it. Just a bad luck, bad positioning.

Then the next foul a guy was dribbling the ball down the court and Murphy trying to get back and the guy notices it and stopped. He got him on his back a little bit. It was just a tough break and we really needed him because of Mook (Cameron Matthews) maybe not playing. So that put us in a bind and put him in a bind. Then the second half he just couldn’t get going.

Q: What is needed for your team to get off to a quick start against McNeese State?
Jans: We just talked about we are our best when we have a defensive mindset and we’re trying to establish ourselves on that end of the floor. It’s always about a battle of wills, our will as a unit against their will. I think in this game that is what will happen. Who’s going to impose their will first, the most, will end up winning the game. For us, it’s where it starts and just establishing ourselves, being tough on the ball and being in the right position. Trying to get multiple stops requires multiple efforts. I think in the end, it’s that and being relentless in the rebounding game will end up being two big factors in the game.

Q: Any update on Kanye Clary?
Jans: I guess I would describe it as he is out indefinitely.

Q: Is the SEC playing the way your peers expected going into the season?
Jans: All I know is that in the summer on the recruiting trail, I would sit next to different coaches and seeing how well everyone did in recruiting and who they all have coming back and different coaches that were hired. And I would ask others to look around and look at these programs, which coach in here doesn’t think they got a real chance to be in the NCAA Tournament? And that was a scary thought. You start naming them off when you are recruiting in the summer, it wasn’t many people that said they can’t come up with one. Maybe one guy I asked that to blurted out a program or two but I had an argument for.

From my perspective and going into it, that’s what I said to people. I haven’t been around the SEC long enough to be making those statements. But I just can’t imagine a deeper SEC than it’s even been. That’s all I said. I just can’t imagine there’s going to be a deeper SEC, just in our league and I’m not comparing it to other leagues. Just historical and people smarter than me have studied it, ranked the numbers and have all the data and it’s out there. People are starting to compare it to the best non-conference records and analytics and metrics.

And I think it’s awesome. I love that our league is performing the way it is. I love rooting for the other programs. The obvious is it’s about the opportunities you have or don’t have once you get into league play. There’s only a few weeks left. Everyone has three or four games left before we have to start playing each other. Keeping our fingers crossed, especially our Bulldogs, finish this non-conference portion and finish it well.

Q: Cameron Matthews has been able to handle the ball a lot during games. Is that something you first saw when you arrived here?
Jans: It’s more of progressed. I can’t tell you that watching film before I coached him or even in the spring or summer that it was in the back of our minds that ‘hey, we’re going to build a package for Cam and let him be the decision-maker and handler. But just over time he started developing. We had some injuries our first year out front and we were a little light on some ball-handling duties. We started messing around with DJ (Jeffries) and Cam being at that position. DJ had obviously played a different position than Cam most of his life and was more familiar with doing that kind of thing.

Then once we started toying with it, it was ‘wow, he’s pretty good at this’. Just developed over time and it’s fun. He likes to do it, we like to do it and hopefully that will continue for us.