Mississippi State
4-0,0-0SEC
South Dakota
2-2,0-0Summit League
Familiar Formula Moves Dawgs to 4-0
November 18, 2022 | Men's Basketball, Joel Coleman
Bulldogs once again rely on defense to set the tone.
STARKVILLE – And so it continues.
Four games into the head coach Chris Jans era at Mississippi State, the Bulldogs kept on keeping on as they remained unbeaten with a 79-42 victory over South Dakota on Thursday night in the Fort Myers Tipoff Regional Round at Humphrey Coliseum.
The winning formula just so happened to be one that's becoming familiar. Incredible defense. Rebounding. Toughness. The Dawgs simply had too much of all of it for the Coyotes to keep up.
"It's all Coach preaches," State's D.J. Jeffries said. "He wants us bought in defensively and just grit and grind everything and let everything else take care of itself. It's fun out there when you're making teams turn the ball over and locking them up where they can't score."
Jeffries was one of three MSU players to score in double figures. He totaled 12 and just missed out on a double-double as he brought down nine rebounds. Tolu Smith led State with 16 points. Cameron Matthews added 14. In all, 10 different Bulldogs scored with eight of them tallying five or more points.
As good as all the balanced scoring was though, it was once again MSU's defense and glass-crashing that stole the show. After allowing the fewest points per game over a season's first three contests in modern Mississippi State basketball history, the Bulldogs kept the pressure on its latest foe.
State limited South Dakota to just 15 points and 15.4 percent shooting from the field in the first half. MSU led 38-15 at the intermission. Sounds good, right? Well, yes and no.
For a glimpse into this team's mindset, get this. It wasn't good enough.
"Coach got on to us at halftime," Jeffries said. "He wanted us to go out there and dominate more [with our rebounding]. All of us put in our minds we had to crash the boards better and just go out there and play a little reckless. He also said if we got two missed crashes, guys were going to sit. So that was in the back of our minds, too. Guys wanted to play."
Added a grinning Matthews: "Whenever Coach Jans threatens you, you do what you've got to do."
State responded. By the end of the game, MSU held a 47-32 rebounding edge.
"Rebounding has always been an emphasis, but [Jans] has been unhappy with it lately," Matthews said. "We've been winning them, but not to his standard. He wants excellence out of all of us. He's preached it and preached it, and we just went out and did it."
Said Jans of the rebounding effort: "It's something we emphasize. It's something we talk about each and every timeout. We keep track of who's crashing and who's not. We use that to try and motivate them that if they want to stay on the court, they need to get active on the backboards. We track it every day in practice. That's one of the qualities we have right now is we have some length and some guys that can move. Hopefully, they'll continue to be hungry on the backboards."
State's stinginess and renewed commitment to rebounding helped the Dawgs stay in control all night long on an evening in which they quickly pulled away.
After South Dakota scored the game's first bucket, MSU immediately responded with a 15-0 run fueled by six points, a steal, a block, a rebound and three assists from Matthews.
From there, the Dawgs kept putting distance between themselves and the Coyotes. MSU led 38-15 after the first 20 minutes, then in the second half, State put the exclamation point on the triumph by outscoring South Dakota 41-27. Jeffries scored nine of his 12 points after halftime courtesy of a 3-for-4 showing from three-point range in the period. Justin Rumph also hit a couple of treys down the stretch to finish with a career-best six points.
When all was said and done, State sat with a perfect 4-0 record, but a clear understanding as well. For as good as this start has been, there's still much to do.
"We're excited, but we're not getting settled," Jeffries said. "We've got a big test coming on Monday."
That test is a 3-1 Marquette squad that's only loss came at the hands of undefeated Purdue. The Golden Eagles and Bulldogs will square off at 7:30 p.m. on Monday at the Fort Myers Tipoff down in Fort Myers, Florida.
Can the Dawgs keep right on rolling? We'll soon see.
"It's going to be fun," Jans said. "We're going to see where we're at one way or another. It's time for us to play a team like [Marquette]. No idea what the result is going to be, but we need to be challenged. We're going to be exposed in some areas of the game. Who knows what it'll be, but we're going to find out after Monday and Wednesday with the quality of teams we're playing where we're at and what we need to work on. I think our team needs to play that quality of competition…It's going to be a heck of a challenge for us."
