WATCH: Coach Jans Media Session

STARKVILLE - Mississippi State men's basketball coach Chris Jans met with the media leading into Monday's practice for his weekly media session.

2023-24 Mississippi State Men's Basketball
Media Session – January 8, 2024

Head Coach Chris Jans
Q: Looking back on the film against South Carolina and assume the team had yesterday off, what will be the emphasis in practice this week leading up to the Tennessee game?
CJ: "Conference races are a marathon. You people talk about college basketball seasons being long, and they are. But when you start your conference slate, there's just not a lot of time to feel sorry for yourself. You've got to turn the page quickly – try to learn, get some growth and then get back to it."

"That's what we've done. We got back fairly early from a road game on Saturday and did what we had to do for film, etcetera, as a staff. Then, quickly turn the page to get into Tennessee. We didn't do anything with the guys like you said yesterday. They're already at it this morning, and we'll get going as a group here in a couple hours. We'll kind of reset the table for the week of what we're doing practice wise, meeting wise, etcetera. But most importantly, just getting them to refocus on Tennessee and try to do what we need to do to put them in the best position possible to try and win the game."

Q: How do you keep the guys from having this 'Here, we go again' mentality when it comes to a slow SEC start given the quality of teams coming up in the next week and a half?
CJ: "We lost one game, it's a long season. We're not thinking like that at all. I don't think they [the players] will be either. We don't talk about who play third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh game. We talk about who we play next, and that's it. That's all our staff is focused on, and it's going to be all that our players are going to be focused on. We've got a veteran group, and we've got a good group of people. They get it. They know that Wednesday is an unbelievable challenge. But, at the same time, what a great opportunity it is to have a top 5, top 10 team in the country on your home court with a chance to win a heck of a game. So, our focus will solely be on preparing for Tennessee and trying to get our guys ready."

Q: What have you seen from Tennessee so far as you prepare?
CJ: "Yeah, typical Coach Rick Barnes team, very well coached. Defensively, I think they're top 2 or 3 in the country per KenPom. That's pretty typical for one of his teams. They've done a great job in the portal and added some key pieces that have made them a little harder to guard, in my opinion, offensively. They're maybe not quite as big around the basket as they were I guess last year, but they're still plenty big and have plenty of depth. They hold their own or better than that around the basket."

"Offensively, they present some challenges because they play different. They play a little old school with a lot more screening and cutting than you see in today's game with all the spread offense, the five out, the ball screens and the dribble drive. They do a lot more staggers and playing off that, reading the defense, etcetera. It'll be a different prep week than normal, but we'll have to play our best."

Q: Tennessee is one of best defensive teams in the country as you mentioned even with a strong non-conference schedule. What's allowed them to play so well on that end of the floor?
CJ: "Well, it starts with just guarding the basketball. They've got great pride individually in guarding the ball and not giving up angles and not giving up penetration. It starts out front with [Zakai] Zeigler. He sets the tone, and he's as good of an on-ball defender as you're going to see in college basketball. He's relentless, and he's in big time shape. He can do it for 35-40 minutes if need be."
"Certainly, that's not the only thing they do well. They've got great spacing defensively. They've got plenty of rim protection. They're just very well-schooled. They're very well taught, they're connected on defense and they take great pride in it. It's really hard to score against them."

Q: Tolu [Smith III] has now been in two games. He's working to get back in a rhythm and shake some rust off. What are your thoughts about him and where he was in the first SEC game compared to Bethune-Cookman?
CJ: "I think he looks pretty good considering he was out of basketball for months. I think he's transitioned back pretty well. He knows better than I know how he feels on the daily basis, and how he feels in terms of his rhythm during the game. He probably would've played more minutes [at South Carolina] if he hadn't gotten in foul trouble, and he's got to be careful to stay away from the silly fouls. That hurts him and us, but I think he's transitioned back well."

Q: Rebounding was a major concern on Saturday. Is there a certain approach you want to take in practice this week or anything you can put your finger on?
CJ: "Yeah, that'll be something that'll be talked about quite a bit. It's talked about a lot daily already. So, that was very disappointing. That was, in my opinion if you had to pinpoint one reason why we didn't win the game, it was because of that. Prior to the game. I would've thought that wouldn't have been the problem. We were trending in the right direction. At the same time, so were they [South Carolina]. I think in the last five or six games, they were 6th in the country in offensive rebounding percentage going into that game. They had strung a bunch of games together with over 40 percent of offensive rebounding. We were aware of that and tried to get our guys to understand that they were coming. They were peeling their ears back and coming to the glass. If we didn't have physical checks and have five guys having the mentality to do what they've got to do to get the ball off the defensive glass, it would be a problem. And unfortunately, it was."

"We just went too long too many times in that game without getting second-chance opportunities ourselves. It wasn't because of a lack of effort. It was some lack of mental discipline of doing your job, if you will. It's just disappointing. I don't know if we can come up with more ways than we already have of trying to coach and teach it better. We're very accountable when it comes to that department every single day with our video study, with our practice and with our emphasis on it in practice. So, we'll continue to figure out, or try to figure out ways to try to get them better. The way this team is constructed, we've got to be a good rebounding team in a league that's got a bunch of good rebounding teams. It'll be something that we'll continue to talk about and work on."

Mississippi State University Athletics

WATCH: Coach Jans Media Session

Related News

Related Videos