Chris Jans analyzes Mississippi State's second half defense vs. Murray State

Chris Jans wasn’t completely pleased with how Mississippi State defended Murray State on Wednesday, especially in the second half. However, he also admitted that it wasn’t all the Bulldogs’ fault.

Jans assessed his team’s second-half defense during his postgame press conference after their 85-81 victory over the Racers. He started by saying that it wasn’t their best effort in general. Even so, their offensive wrinkles, specifically with how they used Rob Perry, is something that he gave credit to their opponent for.

“Obviously, defensively? It wasn’t one of our better performances that we’ve had,” said Jans. “Certainly, the tape will tell the true tale. But they made some tough shots too.”

“You’ve got to give them credit. I mean I thought the last five, seven minutes? No. 2, Perry, made some really good shots. We certainly had some breakdowns,” Jans said. “We were going back and forth if we switch the ball schemes with him because it’s very unique. He plays the four for them so you’ve got a four vs. five ball screen – you don’t see that that often. Jimmy (Bell Jr.) is a bigger dude. This game drug on and he wasn’t up to the level that we needed him to be up.”

After leading by a dozen at half, Murray State cut the final margin to just for. That’s because, in the second half, they scored another 40 points after dropping 41 over the first 20 minutes. Even so, their second-half efficiency was better as they shot 53.9% from the field, 55.6% from three, and 87.5% from the free throw line.

Perry finished as the game’s leading scorer with 21 points on 7-14 (50%) shooting, including 5-9 (55.6%) from three, in 34 minutes. A dozen of those points came in the second half on 50% shooting to get Murray State back in the game and actually take a lead before eventually losing in the end.

These breakdowns didn’t end up costing Mississippi State against the Racers. With that said, Jans’ attention is now on correcting them so as their next opponents, like North Texas on Sunday, don’t take advantage of them in a similar way.

“I thought they made some tough shots,” said Jans. “Like I said earlier, I thought they did a really good job of coming up with some things that could hurt us.”

“Now that we’re exposed that way? We’re going to have to tweak what we do because other teams will mimic it,” Jans said.