WATCH: Coach Jans Media Session

STARKVILLE - Head coach Chris Jans met with the media to preview Wednesday's SEC/ACC Challenge matchup with No. 18 Pitt.

2024-25 Mississippi State Men's Basketball Quotes
Media Session – December 2, 2024

Head Coach Chris Jans
Q: KeShawn Murphy has had a really good start to the season. Can you talk about his play coming out the gate?
CJ: "Yeah, I'm happy for KeShawn. No one deserves success more than him. People that follow us know his history and how many injuries he's sustained. All the time, he's had to rehab in the shadows and kind of wait to be healthy and to get back on the court. It's great to see him reap the benefits of his work and his patience."

"We talked a lot about him going into the season about what a great offseason he had in terms of his consistency with his mental and his physical approach. Then, his productivity in our practices. It doesn't always get to the floor, but when it does you love that story because in theory that's the way you want it to work, right? The guys that work the hardest get rewarded for their play on the court. It's been a so far, so good theme for KeShawn."

Q: When you look at the Butler game defensively, what stood out to you that caught your attention with your squad?
CJ: "We were awful, we were awful on that end of the floor. We just, for whatever reason, didn't maintain our identity. The previous night against UNLV, we got our defense into the game from the jump and controlled the game because of our defense. For whatever reason, 24 hours later, we didn't have the same approach as a team. I'm not sure why. I don't understand why we did it, but we did it."

"It was a bad performance defensively. We weren't great offensively, but it was definitely more attributed to the defensive end of the floor. I have this saying I use with our guys all the time, and I'm not the only coach I'm sure, but it always goes back to 'guarding the ball'. Breakdowns that you see with open shots are normally attributed to something that happened earlier in that particular possession. That usually is because we had a breakdown on the ball, either with just a one-on-one situation or a ball-screen situation or a ghost [screen] or a shallow [screen] or whatever it is. It's always at that point of attack. Then, you find yourself in a scramble situation in a rotation. We just were awful at the point of attack. It wasn't one person. It was a bunch of guys that for whatever reason weren't on it defensively."

"I can't tell you why. If I knew, certainly during the game, I would've fixed it. We've had some tape, and we've had some discussions and practice since that game on Friday. That just can't happen, that's just can't happen for us to want to have a successful season. We've got to remain true to who we are, and why we win. For whatever reason, we lost our way on Friday in Phoenix."

Q: There's a big opportunity for your team on Wednesday night against a Pittsburgh team that's number 5 in the initial NET rankings. What stands out to you about them, and what's been behind their strong start to the season?
CJ: "Yeah, they've got a really good basketball team. Obviously, they've got good players and are well-coached. They just seem to fit together. When you watch them on tape, it starts with their backcourt. The guys they got out there, [Jaland] Lowe and [Ishmael] Leggett are just really good players. They got size, and they got experience. They work together really, really well."

"They've got size, different kind of size. They've got some stretch bigs, and they've got some old school bigs. They've got different guys that can be your quarterback, if you will. Their action that they run in the halfcourt, and they just seem to play really hard for one another. They've had a lot of success."

"They're coming off a big road win against Ohio State. Like you mentioned, they're number 5 in the NET. I'm sure they'll be ranked in the top 25 when that comes out at some point today. So, it's an awesome opportunity for us coming off our last game. I couldn't draw it up any better to have a chance to play against such a good team, especially at home. Especially at home, it'll be a challenge. It will definitely be a challenge."

Q: Going back to the defense, what was the message to the team after the game? What kind of corrections do you think can be made so that it doesn't happen again?
CJ: "That's a good question. Corrections, it's guarding the ball. Basketball, like a lot of sports, it's doing the same things over and over and over. It's not as glamorous as people think it is. You've got to guard the ball every single time, and you've got to jump to the ball. When the ball's shot, you've got to check out. You've got to rebound the ball. That's why most people, when they do practices, they do the same things over and over because that's what the game is. It's doing the same simple, sometimes boring tasks, over and over and over. If you're not willing to buy in to that or understand that or get bored with it, then mistakes happen. You don't think you've got to do it anymore. We can outscore them, or we did it last time. I'm not going to do it tonight."

"So, I think it's more of just a mental discipline. I don't think it's anything physical. Certainly, we had some breakdowns with foot angles, and the two guys involved in the ball screen not being on the same page with the verbal calls in order to put them in position to guard it correctly. We had some breakdowns that way. We'll be working on trying to correct those, but we've had June, July, August, September, October to do all that. They didn't do anything that we hadn't seen or run some new play that surprised us. It was just not being very detail-orientated in what you need to do every single day to be a good defensive team."

Q: Riley Kugel has had a couple big games recently. What have you seen from him, and where would you like to see him improve moving forward?
CJ: "Yeah, I mean, everyone can see the talent. He's been told that for years and it's a consistency thing with Riley. One day against Butler, he looked like he could score at will. But, the day before when we won against UNLV, he didn't look nearly the same. That's the thing that he and us have to figure out is what we can do to help him be more consistent with his approach."

"The things that don't jump out unless you're watching from a coach's perspective is the breakdowns on the other end. I just mentioned that we've had a whole bunch of them. It wasn't one guy, but he definitely had plenty of breakdowns defensively. We've shown him the film like we've shown everybody else on our team. Hopefully, he and us will learn and grow and be better."

Q: Now, with your team having its first loss, what are you looking for on how they will respond with a big opportunity this Wednesday against Pittsburgh?
CJ: "Yeah, like any coach, how will they respond? Are they going to go into some mini team depression and feel sorry for ourselves and start pointing fingers at each other? Or are they going to get deeper into the foxhole and realize that we screwed up, and we're better than that?"

"I'm not trying to take anything away from Butler because they're a well-coached team. They've got good players, and it's a great program. They beat us, but we didn't feel like we played our best. That's what I told them. That was kind of one of my major themes when we approached it once we got back here. I can handle getting beat and getting bettered by another team. I can leave the arena knowing we didn't win, but we competed and played hard. We gave it our best or close to our best shot, and they were just better than us for 40 minutes. But that wasn't how I felt when I walked out of the arena in Phoenix. That's the thing that I'm trying to get them to understand. We can all handle that feeling, but the feeling that we had when we left there, that wasn't it. We didn't compete at the highest level. We didn't compete like we did in practice."

"The crazy thing is, the day before we did [against UNLV]. That's sports. That's dealing with young people, and that's our jobs to get them to understand that's not going to work. That's not going to work over the course of a season. So, I'll be curious like everyone else will be with what our mentality will be come Wednesday when they tip the ball."

Mississippi State University Athletics

WATCH: Coach Jans Media Session

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