WATCH: Coach Jans Postgame Presser - Southeastern Louisiana
November 15, 2025 | Men's Basketball
2025-26 Mississippi State Men's Basketball Postgame Quotes
Mississippi State vs. Southeastern Louisiana – November 15, 2025
Mississippi State Head Coach Chris Jans
Q: What did you think of Jayden Epps in his return?
CJ: "Yeah, it was good to see him out there. He looked like Jayden like he does in practice for the most part. I thought he gave us a lift, and he scored some baskets for us obviously. He had 10 points in 17 minutes."
"He had the late turnover that was probably the thing negatively that sticks out the most. He is too much of a veteran guard to not understand time and score, what we needed at that point in the game, and he acknowledged it right away. Just happy for him and happy for us that he got back on the floor. Hopefully, this will really help him going forward."
Q: Offense seems to flow really good when you value the basketball. Are the high number of turnovers still making you scratch your head?
CJ: "Yeah, to say the least. I don't even know what we had at halftime. I know our [turnover] percentage was lower at halftime than it was at the end of the game, which obviously means we did a better job in the first half than we did in the second half."
"I thought up until it was 57-40 and 68-54 that we had handled their haphazard pressing and trapping that we knew they were going to do pretty well. I thought we had gotten as much out of it as they did or more up to that point. They just kept playing. Credit to them, they kept scrapping and competing. All of a sudden, we get a couple of back-to-back turnovers and the lead shrinks. Then, the coaches are upset, the players are a little dejected and it snowballed on us a little that way."
"Again, unfortunately, I've been talking a lot about this, and these lessons we're learning will have to be applied. I just talked to the team about it. We're learning lessons, but we've got to apply them to the games. We saw what happens when you don't play well for a two-minute stretch or a three-minute stretch like we did against Iowa State who knows how the second half looks. It was 29-27, and then all of a sudden, we were down 18 at half because of two or three possessions changed the mood. It changed the dynamic, it changed our feel and it happened again tonight at home where we had finally got some separation. They were battling us like we knew they would. Then, we got that separation. Then, the turnovers crept up and obviously caused some issues … That's a good thing if we can get figure out how to get more shots on goal that will certainly help."
Q: Shawn had a career high today with 17 points. Do you see him taking more a scoring role in this team when he needs to?0
CJ: "If he shoots it at the clip he does tonight, heck yeah. He had some big shots. He has done that a couple times now for us when it didn't look great for us against North Alabama, he made a big shot as well. He's rising up and shooting it with confidence. He was 7-for-10 [overall] and 3-for-4 [from three]. He had six rebounds and four assists. You know a couple of turnovers, played a lot of minutes, 32 minutes is a lot for Shawn. I'm not sure how many times he's played over 30 minutes. He always defends, for the most part, but if he keeps shooting the ball like that and making good decisions with the ball, he will continue to play that many minutes. He was a big shot in the arm for us tonight."
Q: About four minutes in, you subbed in Dellquan Warren and Sergej Macura and things seem to pick up speed on both sides of the court. What does Sergej bring to the floor that makes him in sync with the rest of the players?
CJ: "If you look at the old school plus-minus, he was a plus +16, which led us tonight. Do I look at it? Yes, is it something that I base my decisions on? Not really. But we had a play style that we wanted to play when we started the game. We had emphasized a bunch of things [in practice] since the Iowa State game. One of the things that we really dove into was our pressuring the ball, and our getting after the basketball at the point of attack. We had a couple of guys that the first couple of times it was their turn to guard the ball and guard their match, it was as if we didn't mention it. It was as if we didn't work on it for three days after what happened in South Dakota."
"So, I told them leading into the game, like I'm going to be hyper-focused on this. This is what we got to get right first. We've got to be able to guard the ball, and we've to be able to guard the point of attack first. If you can't do that in my opinion, you can't guard at all. We had a couple guys that didn't do it. So, we had early subs. That wasn't the plan. One of them really picked it up and the other one didn't. But, at the end of the day, our team and they understand that, we've got to play the way we've got to play. We're not there yet. I don't know if it's not complete buy in. I don't know if it's certain individuals that aren't bought in, but we're still playing a lot of guys. Fortunately for us, we can right now, but it will shrink once we get some guys to completely buy into how we need to guard the ball, how we need to play offense, how we need to share the ball and we're just not there yet."
Mississippi State vs. Southeastern Louisiana – November 15, 2025
Mississippi State Head Coach Chris Jans
Q: What did you think of Jayden Epps in his return?
CJ: "Yeah, it was good to see him out there. He looked like Jayden like he does in practice for the most part. I thought he gave us a lift, and he scored some baskets for us obviously. He had 10 points in 17 minutes."
"He had the late turnover that was probably the thing negatively that sticks out the most. He is too much of a veteran guard to not understand time and score, what we needed at that point in the game, and he acknowledged it right away. Just happy for him and happy for us that he got back on the floor. Hopefully, this will really help him going forward."
Q: Offense seems to flow really good when you value the basketball. Are the high number of turnovers still making you scratch your head?
CJ: "Yeah, to say the least. I don't even know what we had at halftime. I know our [turnover] percentage was lower at halftime than it was at the end of the game, which obviously means we did a better job in the first half than we did in the second half."
"I thought up until it was 57-40 and 68-54 that we had handled their haphazard pressing and trapping that we knew they were going to do pretty well. I thought we had gotten as much out of it as they did or more up to that point. They just kept playing. Credit to them, they kept scrapping and competing. All of a sudden, we get a couple of back-to-back turnovers and the lead shrinks. Then, the coaches are upset, the players are a little dejected and it snowballed on us a little that way."
"Again, unfortunately, I've been talking a lot about this, and these lessons we're learning will have to be applied. I just talked to the team about it. We're learning lessons, but we've got to apply them to the games. We saw what happens when you don't play well for a two-minute stretch or a three-minute stretch like we did against Iowa State who knows how the second half looks. It was 29-27, and then all of a sudden, we were down 18 at half because of two or three possessions changed the mood. It changed the dynamic, it changed our feel and it happened again tonight at home where we had finally got some separation. They were battling us like we knew they would. Then, we got that separation. Then, the turnovers crept up and obviously caused some issues … That's a good thing if we can get figure out how to get more shots on goal that will certainly help."
Q: Shawn had a career high today with 17 points. Do you see him taking more a scoring role in this team when he needs to?0
CJ: "If he shoots it at the clip he does tonight, heck yeah. He had some big shots. He has done that a couple times now for us when it didn't look great for us against North Alabama, he made a big shot as well. He's rising up and shooting it with confidence. He was 7-for-10 [overall] and 3-for-4 [from three]. He had six rebounds and four assists. You know a couple of turnovers, played a lot of minutes, 32 minutes is a lot for Shawn. I'm not sure how many times he's played over 30 minutes. He always defends, for the most part, but if he keeps shooting the ball like that and making good decisions with the ball, he will continue to play that many minutes. He was a big shot in the arm for us tonight."
Q: About four minutes in, you subbed in Dellquan Warren and Sergej Macura and things seem to pick up speed on both sides of the court. What does Sergej bring to the floor that makes him in sync with the rest of the players?
CJ: "If you look at the old school plus-minus, he was a plus +16, which led us tonight. Do I look at it? Yes, is it something that I base my decisions on? Not really. But we had a play style that we wanted to play when we started the game. We had emphasized a bunch of things [in practice] since the Iowa State game. One of the things that we really dove into was our pressuring the ball, and our getting after the basketball at the point of attack. We had a couple of guys that the first couple of times it was their turn to guard the ball and guard their match, it was as if we didn't mention it. It was as if we didn't work on it for three days after what happened in South Dakota."
"So, I told them leading into the game, like I'm going to be hyper-focused on this. This is what we got to get right first. We've got to be able to guard the ball, and we've to be able to guard the point of attack first. If you can't do that in my opinion, you can't guard at all. We had a couple guys that didn't do it. So, we had early subs. That wasn't the plan. One of them really picked it up and the other one didn't. But, at the end of the day, our team and they understand that, we've got to play the way we've got to play. We're not there yet. I don't know if it's not complete buy in. I don't know if it's certain individuals that aren't bought in, but we're still playing a lot of guys. Fortunately for us, we can right now, but it will shrink once we get some guys to completely buy into how we need to guard the ball, how we need to play offense, how we need to share the ball and we're just not there yet."
Players Mentioned
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