Head coach Chris Jans talks Kentucky and student support

After a 2-0 start in the SEC, the road gets a lot tougher for No. 14 Mississippi State (14-1) beginning on Saturday. The Bulldogs welcome No. 6 Kentucky (12-3, 1-1 in SEC) to Humphrey Coliseum for a 7:30 p.m. tipoff (SEC Network).

On Thursday, Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans met with the media for his weekly press conference and he discussed the Wildcats among other topics:

Q: Obviously the goal on Saturday is to win. But your thoughts on the atmosphere your program has helped to build at Humphrey Coliseum?
Jans: It’s been great. From year-to-year, I’m not sure if it is game-to-game but definitely year-to-year, it has been really, really good. When we arrived we talked about creating that atmosphere that everybody wants in their program. Students, to me, have been the ones that have spearheaded it. They’ve been very consistent since we’ve arrived. Our staff and our players have tried to develop relationships with those folks across campus and being visible and work with them and get to know them.

Most importantly, to know we appreciate them. It’s not just a foregone conclusion that students are supposed to come to the games. We’ve tried to be interactive with them. I think as a fan, everybody knows if the students are there, it’s just creates a more ruckus environment and everybody gets more involved. It’s been awesome to see and hopefully it will continue.

Q: With the season going, how beneficial as been the addition of basketball strategy coordinator Jordan Sperber?
Jans: We’ve been using analytics for years. It’s not like with Jordan’s arrival we started something new. I’ve worked with Jordan before a long time ago so I had an idea of what it would bring to the table. It is hard to put a number value on that. Other people ask me about different additions and subtractions to staff in different years. There’s things that come up throughout the course of the season, especially as you look back and that person made an impact on this particular facet of the game or in this particular game plan.

With Jordan, it’s just his knowledge and experience of studying basketball from his perspective and just having a sounding board for me to be able to ask him questions about trade-offs of us being more heavily in one area of the game and what is the trade-off of analytics and other programs that he has studied. He has certainly brought value, which I anticipated he would. But in terms of just pinpointing what that means and how that influences us as a basketball team, it is still a work in progress and only a few months into the job. But I love that he is here and I think the whole staff is using him as a sounding board, as well, and just a wealth of information for us.

Q: What stands out to you about Kentucky?
Jans: A lot of things. They are just so explosive, offensively. I think they got five and maybe six that fluctuates with double-figure scorers. So it’s not as if they are no equipped to handle off nights by certain individuals. It is pretty remarkable to have that many guys on a consistent basis averaging that many points over the course of the season. They just run their stuff with so much confidence and so much pace that you know they have a great buy-in with their team.

They believe in what they are doing. They play together. They share the basketball at a high, high level. Obviously, they are very skilled and very talented but more importantly, they play together. Coach (Mark) Pope and his staff have done a tremendous job of getting their kids to buy in and buy into the system. Then the other end, not that it doesn’t help them on offense, they are just so big all the way around.

Out front, they’ve got big, strong guards and it starts with (Lamont) Butler as the head of the snake, defensively, and the experience and size he brings to the table. Then they got tremendous size around the basket with great shot-blocking ability, as well. They’re obviously a very good basketball team.

Q: As the highest-ranked team you have faced this year, how much of an opportunity is this to make a statement nationally?
Jans: That’s never crossed my mind. I wouldn’t have known that unless you brought it up. We’re just focused on doing our jobs and trying to figure out. Hopefully, it’s a best plan. We’ll see, to put our kids in position to be successful at both ends of the floor. But in terms of their ranking or what team we’re ranked, it’s going to be a long, long season and I imagine the way it looks right now, we’ll have plenty of challenges and opportunities like this as the season unfolds.

Q: Each game you’ve had different contributions from several different guys. How valuable is that depth on this team?
Jans: Yeah, it’s kind of like what I referred to Kentucky. They’ve proven that different guys can step up on different nights. We don’t have as many guys that are averaging double figures. But I think we do have enough game experience to know that we definitely have people capable of leading us in scoring on different nights or stepping up and making a big shot when it’s really, really needed over the course of a game.

So I think our whole locker room has a lot of confidence in each other. Every team has a leading scorer. But in some teams given the situation, everybody knows where the ball is going to go. For us people tend to think the ball is going to go to Josh (Hubbard), and certainly it’s going to quite a bit of the time. But I think it probably makes him feel really, really good knowing that if it doesn’t end up in his hands there’s plenty of willing and able teammates that are able to step up either over the course of a game or in that moment.

Q: What impresses you the most the way Mark Pope was able to re-do his roster and build his team on the fly this year?
Jans: I knew that he would. I anticipated that he would. I’m familiar with coach. We were in the same league. We played against each other a handful of times prior to this game.
I’ve always had a lot of respect for him as a human being, as a person and definitely as a coach. I got to know him over the course of the last few years. He works very hard at his craft. He’s an excellent coach and really hard-nosed recruiter that works at it. And with him being an alum and former player I knew he would hit the ground running. And with the name brand, I couldn’t imagine him having any problems having an elite roster and he’s done that. So they’re probably where I expected them to be.

Q: People like to compare scores in this league and Kentucky and Tennessee both lost the other night. Is it smart to do that in the SEC?
Jans: No, I wouldn’t advise anyone at any time. You guys have been following this sport long enough to know, you start doing that and it will mess with your head. If you’re a player or coach you definitely shouldn’t be into that game. It could warp your mind and not get you in the right frame of mind to play a certain team. You beat someone and they got beat by that person so that means we’re going to beat them. That’s been thrown out the window decades ago.

People can say oh, it’s not ideal that Kentucky lost that game. Well whatever, it’s out of our control. We’re going to play Kentucky Saturday night. They’re going to play Mississippi State Saturday night. Our jobs as coaches is to get our kids ready to play and whether we’re coming off a loss or a win. I understand the headline of it would be better for us if they had came in after a win. Who knows? The old adage is who knows what’s going on inside the walls of another program all year long. You always wonder but you never know. So you have to say singularly focused on the task at hand and preparing your kids and trying to get ready to play.

Q: You have several guys that have played in big games. How beneficial is that to have guys that have played in big-time atmospheres?
Jans: I think where we’re at in college basketball, that’s going to be the case more times than not because of the portal and kids having different experiences prior to transferring to another school. So certainly we’ve got enough guys that have been here and been in games that will be like Saturday with the anticipation and the crowd. But so do they. They’ve got a bunch of guys that have already played in big-time environments against big-time programs. So their comfort level will be fine, I’d imagine, because of the opportunities that they have in the preseason to play in these certain types of events. They’ve played at Clemson, they’ve played at Georgia, they played big neutral-site games. So I don’t think that part of the game will be too much for either team.