Dillon Elder excited for new role as assistant coach with Mississippi State

As the college landscape continues to change, more opportunities are being created for people beyond the student athlete ranks.

The game of basketball has even changed coaching staffs over the last few years as more assistants have now been approved for coaches like Chris Jans at Mississippi State. Jans chose to give some of his current staff members an elevation of sorts and Dillon Elder heard the call this offseason.

A former graduate assistant at Texas A&M, Elder also spent time as a Video Assistant for the Minnesota Timberwolves and was Tarleton State’s Director of Operations. After joining Jans’ staff as Director of Scouting and Analytics two seasons ago, Elder will now be added to the bench to help coach during ball games this year.

Elder spoke to the media ahead of the Bulldogs’ season to detail how he found out about his promotion, his job responsibilities and the State program under Jans.

Question: What was it like finding out that you’d be promoted to assistant coach?

DE: “First of all, I’m grateful for coach giving me an opportunity. Adding more guys to the staff helps younger guys like me get on the court earlier than what would have happened when I started eight or nine years ago. We had talked through different scenarios of how we wanted to build the staff out and what the best way to allocate the resources of all of our different positions and what skill sets we wanted.

“He told me it was a possibility, but we were putting together the chart to turn in to get all of the positions approved and he said, ‘for you, go ahead and put assistant coach.’ He tried to spring it on me like that. Excited for the opportunity and grateful that he’s somebody that is willing to promote from within and promote a younger guy that maybe might not have that normal assistant profile.”

Q: How has your role changed?

DE: “For one, being on the court more. In practice, we break down the two ends of the court and run drills. In the past, when I saw something, I couldn’t say anything. Now if I see something in 5-on-5 in practice, I jump in and have conversations with guys and help them improve that way.

“Scouting will be pretty similar as far as focusing on opponents’ offenses, what we’re running and what we’re going to try to do to stop them. More involved as far as the on-court portion of that in preparation for the game. In my previous role, I couldn’t do that. The main difference is being on the court more, running film in front of the team, run the drills and have more interaction in a team setting with the players.”

Q: What does Jordan Sperber to the staff for analytics. What does he add to the team?

DE: “It’s great to get another guy in here. I understand it all, but he’s on a different level. He’s got his own website, YouTube channel and I was just trying to do the best I could to help our team. He’s an expert.

“He had different opportunities to go work in the NBA at different times in his career so obviously he’s on a different level as far as understanding the analytics. That’s valuable here because coach likes that. If you get an oldschool coach that isn’t interested in it, it doesn’t matter how many people on staff that understand it. We’re not all numbers like some programs, but we definitely use it in our decision making, practices, games and everything that we do there’s that element there.

“He understands how to use analytics, use it in scouting and how to get our team better, game planning and what plays to run. There’s so many  elements even at the college level where you can get it into your program and player development. Having somebody that’s really elite in that regard is really going to help us a lot.”

Q: You’ve seen the last couple of teams here. What stands out about this year’s team in comparison?

DE: “If you show up and watch practice, it’s definitely easier for this team to put the ball in the basket which is really good for our defense too. It challenges us on a different level. We’ve been challenged since June because we’re having to guard more talented offensive players. They share the ball really well and have a lot of pace in the full court and  half court and it’s just hard for the defense to keep up with them. Getting to the point where we can do that more often, it’s going to be good for us once we get to the game.”

Q: What have you seen from Jans in how he’s evolved?

DE: “As far as changing what we do on a day-to-day basis, it hasn’t. We’re going to guard, we’re going to rebound, we’re going to play hard and be the toughest team on the court. The adjustment was that we’re going to build the team and get guys that have a better natural ability to score the ball. We’ve had guys the last two years from an effort, defense and toughness standpoint were just off the charts.

“Two years ago we were last in the country in three-point shooting. We were better last year and obviously Hubbard played a big part in that, but how do we continue to put more shooting and playmaking on the court to where offensively it’s just easier.

“Defensively, with the amount of time we’ve put into it and how coach runs practices, we’re going to get them to defend. It was really about trying to put a team together with more playmaking, shooting, speed and more offensive talent.”