Back To The Basics Of Chris Jans Ball
March 12, 2025 | Men's Basketball, Joel Coleman
Mississippi State Senior Writer Joel Coleman discusses how MSU’s defense smothered LSU and provided a recipe for prolonged March success.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans didn't earn the nickname, "The Dentist", by accident a couple of years ago when college hoops expert Jon Rothstein gave the Bulldogs' bench boss his moniker.
When you play against Jans' Bulldogs, getting anything going against them is supposed to be like having a painful oral procedure done without the use of novocaine.
Well, if anyone needed a refresher of what that looks like, Jans and his guys reminded the college basketball world on Wednesday night in Nashville. State blew out LSU 91-62 at the Southeastern Conference Tournament, and in the process, perhaps shared the recipe for what the Dawgs hope is about to be prolonged March success – a return to the tooth-yanking ways that Jans has built a career on.
"That was the mantra [coming into this week] is that we were going to go back to the basics," Jans said following Wednesday's win. "We did a lot of defensive stuff – drills that we hadn't done for months – to try to get everybody just mentally focused and understanding that if we're going to win games here, it's got to start on that end of the floor."
This is a basketball team that Jans has admitted was built with more of an offensive emphasis than his first two Bulldog rosters. But for all the extra scorers State has and for all the points they've put up this season, it's really indisputable that MSU is at its best when they're defending the way Jans demands.
When the Dawgs do that, they can beat absolutely anyone in the country. And they can destroy some squads the way they did on Wednesday.
Save for an early back-and-forth battle and a brief second-half rally, the Tigers had little chance against the bite of the Bulldogs. LSU didn't even have a field goal the final 10:04 of the first half.
"It was some of our best defense we've played all year long," Jans said of the stretch.
Said State star guard Josh Hubbard: "I feel like in that stretch we were just playing Bulldog basketball. Getting after the ball, getting deflections and getting defensive rebounds…As long as we have that mindset just coming out defending and rebounding the ball, we can just be a scary team."
Scary indeed.
There is no foe, at the SEC Tourney or beyond, that wants to see this Mississippi State team with its offensive capability back to consistently playing smothering defense too.
Yet that's precisely what Jans is trying to get his guys to do. Some coaches by this point might've already decided what their team's identity is. Jans, meanwhile, has refused to settle and entered this week driven to squeeze every last bit of defensive focus he can out of the Bulldogs.
"We had a long talk Monday before we started preparing for the SEC Tournament as a whole," Jans said. "We just talked about how disappointed I think all of us were in some of our recent games, especially on [the defensive] side of the ball. Our last game against Arkansas, we scored 92 points and lost. That's not something that we've done a lot since [I've been here].
"We really just tried to reset and get everyone to buy in and believe."
And everyone did precisely that. State's lockdown D combined with an offense that set new program SEC Tournament single-game records for 3-pointers and points scored led to MSU's largest-ever margin of victory at this event.
It was only one game, but it was special. And it showed the secret that could lead to Mississippi State March Magic might not be a secret at all.
It's the very thing the Dawgs' head man is known for: pulling teeth, with all pain included.