Head coach Chris Jans talks South Carolina, Claudell Harris and SEC gauntlet

After a challenging non-conference slate, the stakes get higher as does the competition this weekend for Mississippi State. The 17th-ranked Bulldogs (12-1) open SEC play on Saturday against South Carolina (10-3) in a 1 p.m. tipoff at Humphrey Coliseum.

On Thursday, head coach Chris Jans met with the media to discuss the Gamecocks along with other topics:

Q: How difficult is the matchup with South Carolina’s Collin Murray-Boyles?
Jans: He’s a special player, probably my favorite player in the league thus far. I haven’t gotten to see everybody, obviously, this season. But he can do it all. He doesn’t shoot the 3 and he’s made a handful of them maybe on the year. But the way he impacts the game in every other facet of the game is pretty remarkable. He’s got such a great feel, got soft hands, uber-competitive, can offense through him.

He’s obviously unbelievable on the glass. He’s just got a great combination of size and skill and feel and IQ and competitive spirit. He’s got to be their leader, I would imagine, when things are hard for them. Everyone in the gym knows where it’s going. The guys that have already played him know and unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about it. He’s a good passer, as well. They’ve got a lot of good players but it definitely starts with him.

Q: Several of your guys have SEC experience already. How valuable is that?
Jans: Like always, we’re gonna find out. We don’t know yet but hopefully it will be valuable. But they (South Carolina) do, too. They’ve got some guys, at least one, that transferred in from the SEC in addition to the returnees that they have. So both teams will have plenty of SEC experience. If you look at them like I have, they’ve won eight in a row. They had a stinker out of the gate that I’m sure they would want back like 95% of college basketball teams want one back at this point. We’re no different.

Other than that, they got beat at Indiana and Xavier, who is really good. They are a well-coached team. They are well-versed and they play together. They are old-school in terms of controlling tempo. It starts with their defense and they just don’t give you anything. They make you work your tail off to get any looks. They are a pretty good basketball team.

Q: What’s it going to take for your team to come out of this SEC schedule as one of the top teams in the league?
Jans: The next game is the biggest game of the year. That’s been our mantra as a coaching staff for a long time. We treat every game like the Super Bowl and our kids have to adapt to that, as well, because if you don’t you are for sure going to get beat. You might get beat anyway. If you are super-prepared, super-focused and play pretty good, you can still get beat on any given night, home or road.

But I think we all have to try to get on board with that and get excited about being part of the game plan and buying into that. Not just the coaches presenting it and trying to get them to understanding it, but really be locked in as a group. These games, a lot of them are going to come down to a possession or two. You’re hoping you can give your kids a chance by putting them in the right position. It’s just going to be the next game is the biggest game of the year.

Q: You’ve talked about guarding the ball at the point of attack. How do you improve that?
Jans: You are spot on and we are not efficient in a lot of categories that we’ve been accustomed to being efficient in, not just here but at prior stops. I knew we would not be as good, defensively, and I said that to anyone that would listen to me and I don’t think people believed me. But I could see it in the summer and fall that it just wasn’t in the cards. Fans out there say ‘why coach?’. We’re not built the same but the trade off is, offensively, we are much better. If you look at the offensive numbers they are way more efficient.

No. 1 is me being okay with the trade off. I don’t know if I am okay with it but it’s just reality at this point. But in order to win games, though, we’re gonna have to get better as the SEC unfolds. I’m not counting on it but at the same time, in our biggest games we’ve had our best performances on that end of the court. I hate being a team that rises or falls to the old-school level of competition. But if that is the case, that will bode well for us because there’s only going to be rising to the level with the gauntlet that is ahead of us. But there’s no question about it, if we want to be successful over the long haul, we’re gonna have to tighten up our defense, for sure.

Q: You singled out Claudell Harris the last time out with the way he is impacting the team. Is that something you could tell he would do when you recruited him in the transfer portal?
Jans: Not really. Saw him being more of a scorer. Didn’t see him being what you described and that’s why I said what I said after the game of how excited I am for him and for us because he is rounding into form for this year’s team and for him to impact the game in a bunch of different areas than just how many points he scores each game.

He probably ranks in the Top 2 or 3 of talking on defense for us every day and that’s invaluable for our team. The growth the other night of not taking a field goal attempt in the first half and then having patience but still impacting the game on the defensive end. Then waiting and being rewarded for getting more open looks in the second half.

Sometimes when people use the term ‘role player’, I feel like there’s almost a negative connotation with it. Like he’s not a great player, he’s a role player. That’s not true at all and coaches know that. Sometimes others around don’t understand that. Everyone has a role. If your role is to be the leading scorer and you are the leading scorer, that doesn’t mean you’re
the best player. It means you are the best scorer on that particular team.

I think all of us at times say you got to play a role for this team. I don’t really talk about role-playing with our guys at all. We don’t talk about it because I don’t look at it that way. If you want to play more minutes, here’s what you need to focus on and things of that nature. So when people put Claudell or anyone in a role-players deal it makes cringe at times because he’s having a great year for us and I think he’s going to have a better year as we go down the stretch of SEC play.

Q: With the SEC being what it is this year, how much more important is it to defend the home court?
Jans: I’m just worried about Saturday, man. I’m all in on South Carolina. Certainly, I know the first five or six games who we play and where but don’t give it much thought. Certainly, protecting home court will be talked about by every team in America starting league play opening up at home. We are no different, probably. But it is a marathon. This league is going to be a gauntlet and everyone is talking about it. But I think we are all in for South Carolina.

Q: Your thoughts on the rest of South Carolina’s team outside of Murray-Boyles?
Jans: Like I said earlier, I’ve got a lot of respect for Coach (Lamont) Paris and what he’s done over there. They play the right way. They’ve got some old school to them. They know who they are. They are comfortable in their own skin as a program, as a team. They’ve got other good players. They’ve got guys that have been around. (Jacobi) Wright and (Myles) Stute have been here. They’ve got guys that can shoot the ball. The guy that shoot the best from 3 are the guys who shoot the most from 3. That’s what you want, the guys who shoot the best percentage to shoot the most shots.

They are terrific at winning the free throw line. If you look at their numbers, I think they ae 7th in the country in the free-throw attempt, field-goal attempt situation. They know who they are and they are hard to play against. They’re just a team that you got to beat them. They don’t beat themselves. You got to take it to them because of how they play.

Q: How much more valuable is Cameron Matthews as a leader going into the SEC grind and how is his foot?
Jans: I wouldn’t say he is 100%. You would have to ask him. We still have modifications for him in practice but I would say he is better now than he was 3-4 weeks ago in terms of being able to be more involved and more reps in practice. In terms of relying on him because he’s been there, done that, I certainly hope so. He’s one of our main leaders and he is who we want him to be personality-wise on game day, especially. Hopefully, he has experiences to share with the other players leading into it and probably more importantly, when we have adversity which we obviously will in some of these games coming up.