The Path To The Dance
March 14, 2023 | Men's Basketball, Joel Coleman
Appreciating State’s journey to the biggest stage in college basketball.
DAYTON, Ohio – Early Monday afternoon, Mississippi State's team plane touched down in a snowy and cold Dayton, Ohio – the site of Tuesday's First Four NCAA Tournament game against Pittsburgh. Within moments of landing, the Bulldogs were off the aircraft, on a bus and getting whisked away to the team hotel.
The Dawgs didn't play until Tuesday. The big dance was still several hours away. But upon arrival to the Marriott on the campus of the University of Dayton, the party had already begun.
State pulled up to the premises and the figurative red carpet was rolled out. Bagpipes were blaring in celebration. The lobby of the hotel was turned into an impromptu jam session. Mississippi State had played road games before this year. However, the Bulldogs hadn't experienced anything like this.
It was a quick indoctrination to March Madness, where literally everything is bigger.
"It's just different," MSU head coach Chris Jans would say of the NCAA Tournament later in the afternoon when talking to reporters. "Even when you sit down in here for a press conference, the lights are brighter. The stage is bigger. It's raised. It's just a different feel than anywhere else."
It's different because it's special. And it's special because only the best in college hoops get to experience it.
Now here Mississippi State is among that group, thanks to a year-long, winding journey in which no one in the program, from the top down, would be denied.
The Jans Approach
Jans was hired at Mississippi State in March of 2022. The results have since proven he was absolutely the right man for the job, but maybe the biggest reason why is just the attitude he brought to Starkville.
Some coaches would've taken over a team and immediately focused on building. They'd have tampered expectations for a couple of years until their feet got under them.
Jans had none of that. The longtime coach had a background in junior college basketball where roster turnover from year to year was common. He was determined that for this season – and that ones that'll follow – given the current environment of college athletics, there's no reason why MSU can't be in the NCAA Tourney mix every year.
"What we talked about even in the [introductory] press conference, and I don't think some of the people in the room probably loved to hear it [was we felt] with our team…the days of building a program are gone," Jans explained. "There will be some people that will continue to do it that way, but most of us will probably try to build teams each and every year to be competitive and to win right now with the landscape of college basketball and the way it is. That's kind of the approach that we had, and that's what we told everybody in the room that was still there. That's what we told our recruits that joined us or didn't join us for that matter."
First-Team All-Southeastern Conference center Tolu Smith was among those who heard Jans' pitch that Mississippi State could and would be competitive immediately. Smith bought in.
Sure, he could've gone elsewhere to continue his career, but Smith felt immediately that under Jans, he could accomplish everything he wanted to in his senior season while still wearing Maroon and White.
"Everybody knows Coach Jans is…one of the [top coaches] in the nation," Smith said. "We knew that going into it. I had a great opportunity to sit down and talk to him once our last coach resigned, and I had a great conversation with him. He told me his goals, and I told him my goals, and they aligned.
"Once I heard that, I just ran with it. He had a blueprint, and we just went along with the blueprint. It worked out really well in our favor."
It absolutely did. Make no mistake though, the last few months have been anything but a smooth ride.
The Journey
Jans put together his first Bulldog roster and the group began its season in early November. Even Jans himself likely couldn't have predicted what was about to happen.
MSU won its first 11. There were huge victories over now-NCAA Tournament teams in the streak – including a triumph over a Maquette squad that is now the proud owner of a No. 2 seeding this month.
"[We] probably raised expectations a little too high locally, but that's okay," Jans said. "That's the goal, right, to win every game?"
The arrival of SEC play wasn't as kind to the Dawgs. MSU hit multiple speed bumps while navigating an ultra-challenging slate in late December and January.
The Bulldogs dropped seven of their first eight league games. Externally, dreams of an NCAA Tournament appearance had all but faded. But internally, the Dawgs didn't fold.
Not every team could've survived the stress of a month-long stretch of heartbreak and disappointment. This one didn't just survive. They thrived and became closer.
"We knew we had to stick together if we wanted to accomplish the things that we wanted to accomplish," Eric Reed, Jr. said. "That's what we did. We set out a goal and we went and attacked it."
It wouldn't be long until the Bulldogs were profiting from their perseverance.
Now, most outside observers would look at January 28 as the day Mississippi State's season turned around. That's the day MSU went out and topped No. 11 TCU at Humphrey Coliseum.
There's no denying the magnitude of that triumph, but Jans insists the most critical moments of State's year happened three days prior when MSU traveled to Alabama and narrowly fell against the mighty Crimson Tide, who now sit as the nation's No. 1 overall seed.
"Certainly we weren't happy with the results, but as I look back over the course of the season, I felt like that gave our team more confidence," Jans said. "I felt like we changed a little bit going forward and that we could compete with anybody anywhere."
From there, the victories began piling up. Starting with the victory over TCU, the Bulldogs won eight of their next 10 games.
"[We] went to Arkansas and beat them on the road," Jans recalled. "It's one thing to win games at home. It's not as difficult. But when you're going into places like that where it's so loud and there's 15,000, 18,000 people there and it's that kind of environment and you're able to play well…that really was a big shot in the arm for us. And basically, that's kind of where we took off and we kind of got back in the conversation of being a part of March Madness. Then in the end, we were able to win enough games to be sitting [in Dayton]."
The Opportunity
Mississippi State learned its postseason fate last Sunday night. The Bulldogs sat together as a family inside their team video room at Humphrey Coliseum and celebrated together when their name was called on the selection show.
It was the realization of what Jans had told them was possible months before. It was also the fulfillment of many dreams.
"We saw our name get called and were all just happy and thrilled," Smith said. "Before the season started, that was a goal of ours. Coach said it was a goal of his. He wasn't planning to build a team, he was planning to build a team for that year to go to the tournament. That's what he did. We put so many hours into the gym, so many hours into ourselves and to our bodies and it's paying off. It's just paying dividends for us. It's just a blessing."
This journey and its reward have also been a testament to toughness. It's showed how unwavering commitment when times are dark will eventually lead you to the light.
"When you're 1-7 in the SEC and you're looking at your schedule and you've got some major teams you have to still go play or you have to host…I just can't imagine that many people at that point thought we'd be sitting here [in the NCAA Tournament] talking about getting ready to play Pittsburgh," Jans said. "I just think [this team's] togetherness, their resiliency, their ability to stay the course and trust the process is probably what I'll remember the most about this team."
Here's maybe the most exciting part of this group's story. It's not over yet.
They'll play the Panthers Tuesday night in Dayton and if they win, there'll be another happy flight to another city. There'll likely be another arrival party at another team hotel.
It's been a sweet ride already. But it has the opportunity to get even sweeter.
"Everybody gets to this stage, and you don't want it to end," Jans said. "You want to play. That's what I tell [the team], 'This is really good, but if you go to the next round, it's even better. Then if you get to the next weekend, well, you can't imagine that.'"
If Mississippi State has proven anything up to this point, it's that they're going to be dancing until somebody makes them stop. There has been no ounce of quit in these Bulldogs and that bodes well for the madness ahead.
"We're all together," D.J. Jeffries said. "Whatever Coach Jans wants us to do, we're going to do it. We're all willing to run through a wall for each other. I feel like that itself is going to take us a long way because we're together, we're hungry [and almost all of us] haven't been here before. So, everybody wants to win. We're going to do whatever it takes to keep advancing."
