Head coach Chris Jans talks new roster, freshmen class and scheduling

Coming off the program’s third straight NCAA Tournament invite, Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans and the Bulldogs have returned to the practice courts. That process began on Wednesday as the Bulldogs will have regulated times to practice throughout the summer.

A total of 14 players have begun working inside Humphrey Coliseum. The lone player waiting to enroll is 2025 commitment and Slovenia native Sergej Macura, who committed to State last month.

On Thursday, Jans met with the media to discuss his new roster among other aspects:

Q: What are you with the calendar right now and what are you allowed to do this summer?
Jans: We’re back on the floor. We chose to start yesterday. So we get eight weeks on the floor limited access to our student-athletes per the NCAA rules. We get four hours of skill instruction Monday through Friday then Coach Dominic Walker gets four hours of strength and conditioning for a total of eight.

Not on the weekends and just week days. That will be eight weeks structured around summer school at the same time. They changed the rules to where you are good to go, academically, and you don’t have to take as many hours as you used to. That is an individual decision that kids make depending on where they are academically and what their goals are. But yesterday was the first day and we are off and running.

Q: What were some things you were looking for in the transfer portal this year?
Jans: Every year is different when the dust settles. Certainly we know who we signed in November with the recruiting class. But you have to wait a little bit to know exactly what you’re seeking with your portal departures. That was in real time and combine that with how we felt during the season.

We needed to get bigger and better on the glass, which is hard for me to admit because most of my teams have been really good in the rebounding department. But we felt like we had too many games where that was maybe a difference in the win/loss column. So we tried to shore it up that way.

Then didn’t shoot the ball from 3 very well after coming off a year where we shot it much better in our second year, especially compared to our first year. So we’ve been here three years now and sandwiched a decent shooting team with poor 3 point shooting teams. We tried to address that.

We thought going into the year that we had addressed it. I thought we had enough guys that could shoot the ball. For whatever reason, as a group we didn’t end up shooting it as well as we anticipated or how we started the season. I don’t know all the why’s but the two biggest areas we wanted to address were just having more guys that can shoot the ball and put the ball in the hole and obviously rebounding the basketball.

Q: How was the process of recruiting the transfer portal with uncertainty if Josh Hubbard would be back?
Jans: I mean, for my conversations with Josh and his family, I am glad they went through that process. Hopefully he learned a lot and knowing Josh, I am confident that he did. But we had great communication behind the scenes throughout the process. So I had a pretty good idea unless something crazy happened and if it did it did. But we went through that process, for the most part, thinking Josh was going to be a part of our basketball team. I don’t remember the exact date but probably before the public knew.

Regardless of that, a lot of programs have to deal with that issue and we were no different this year.

Q: Shawn Jones played well down the stretch last year. Your thoughts on him returning to the team?
Jans: Yeah we are excited for Shawn, excited for us to have Shawn back. He is not a guy that is a leading scorer or even a big minute guy. But he has helped us win a lot of basketball games. I’ve said this many times but he finds a way to get himself on the floor when it is hard, especially the last few minutes of the games he has played in.

He will be our first four-year guy that we’ve had. He matched our arrival and came in that summer and was a late signee, didn’t get here until the fall so he was behind the eight ball a little bit going into his freshman year. But in this era that we are coaching in, to have a four-year player right off the bat is cool. It is not going to be the norm anymore and it will be the new exception.

It speaks volumes to what Shawn values and what he is about. Certainly going into his senior year and albeit a short time period, he’s already shown a willingness to step up and have a bigger voice. Certainly it is easy for two days and hopefully it is something he continues to do because he’s earned that right. The guys know he has been here a long time, the recruits that follow us closely, once they signed with us in the fall. It’s been so far, so good situation with him that way.

Q: In the past three years you’ve had more offensive-minded centers. But this year you have Quincy Ballard who is a true rim protector. How does that change your defense?
Jans: I’m not gonna disagree with you on the first part of your question. I basically answered that with what our focus was going into the portal season and what we were trying to address. I really felt like we just needed to be better around the basket, defensively.

In a league where there are so many good players, there’s so much physicality around the basket. There’s so many opposing players that have the ability to break the defense down and get to the rim. You add that with how many ball screens are on ploy each and every game and the level of what’s going on with those ball screens. Having a quarterback on defense or a goalie on defense is a big advantage.

I haven’t felt like we’ve had that since we’ve been here. A guy that can protect the lane, protect the rim, protect some guys out front if they are getting beat. Certainly not trying to put a ton of pressure on (Ballard’s) back walking in the door, but it is a big reason why we went after him the way we did. Just looking at his video and his numbers, we felt like he was a great fit for what we were looking for. Obviously, he felt the same once he did his homework and cast his lot with us.

We are excited to have him and certainly have a long way to go. But just on paper, he is exactly what we were looking for.

Q: Your early thoughts on the freshman class and how they may can contribute?
Jans: They are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Enthusiasm is off the chart, the togetherness, the work ethic, the bounce in their step. But I’ve been doing this long enough now and I think the kids hate this when I tell them this and I haven’t even shared it with them yet. But I don’t enjoy it as much as maybe I used to the first couple of days of the return just because there’s a lot of things going on across the country.

If you don’t have enthusiasm and a bounce in your step on the Day 1, Day 2, second week, it is probably going to be a long year for that particular program. So my thing is, yeah, we got to start there and I am glad we did. But ask me on Day 21 or Day 42 and I can give you a better idea of how the new guys are doing. Having said that, one full day and one workout is all we are. Not sure if we will talk later in the summer but time will tell.

Q: Is the schedule this year another step in upgrading the schedule each year?
Jans: I’d like to think so. We’ve been intentional about our scheduling. To me, recruiting is 1A and scheduling is probably 1B in terms of success of your program. Not necessarily wins and losses but trying to put each particular team in a situation where we have a chance to be an at-large team. When I arrived that is what we talked about. On Day 1 at the podium it was putting together teams each year that had a chance to be an at-large team and play in March Madness. Obviously, knock on wood, we’ve been successful and three for three in being able to do that.

But we’ve also done a lot of work behind the scenes and there’s a lot going on with scheduling. People say that but unless you’ve been through it or hovered over it, they don’t understand the detail that goes into it. My staff has been unbelievable.

Dillon Elder has taken over the lion’s share of that work over the last two years. He’s been really good at identifying situations, teams, projections, to make us make better decisions on playing away, neutral, who, where, when and all of that goes into it. Certainly it takes two to tango and there’s a lot of work, a lot of phone calls, a lot of back and forth, a lot of getting left at the alter at times.

But we got a model that is kind of our baseline and it has obviously been good so far, putting ourself in position. Certainly, you are at the mercy of SEC scheduling and all the analytics that they use to spit out the schedule. You got to live with it and it is uneven. You are not playing every team twice home and home.

We were fortunate last year because of the obvious. The SEC was on steroids, historic season, so we had so many Quad 1, Quad 2 opportunities and so minimal Quad 3 games. But is that going to remain the same?

So we felt like, we didn’t want to count on having that many opportunities in the SEC. So we wanted to schedule one more Quad 1, Quad 2, opportunity than maybe we had the year before just to make sure that we have enough opportunities in the fall. I think it is crucial to have those opportunities in the fall. It doesn’t mean you have to win every one of them. We’ve been successful for the most part winning a lot of those games. But even if we end up losing a game or two more than maybe we have, that is not the goal but if we do, it’s not going to hurt us.

It is not going to hurt our numbers. We are trying to put our team in position to be better, to get better. Going to Iowa State the second game of the year on a neutral floor where their fanbase is obviously much closer than ours, that won’t be a neutral feel. That will be a tough situation for us. But what a great opportunity to see where we are at early.

They are going to grow, get better, especially for a team that is fairly new, which you are going to hear that from most everyone across the country for the most part. But scheduling is crucial and we spent a lot of time on it. I like where we’re at. It’s not completely finished but we are a way ahead. We are close, real close to being done. If things fall into place like I anticipate it doing, I think we will be real happy about it heading into the deeper summer.

Q: How important was it to get another scorer like Jayden Epps from Georgetown and how do you think he meshes with Josh Hubbard?
Jans: Any time we can get someone that can elevate some of that pressure from Josh, maybe give us more space on the court with another guy that is a dual-threat like Josh is. Josh’s game has grown to where he’s got an unbelievable 3 point game. But each and every year, each and every month, he gets better at probing, getting into the lane and being more of a three-level scorer, and Jayden is similar in that way.

Jayden doesn’t just rely on the 3. He doesn’t just rely on being a driver or just a paint eater. They have some similarities that way. Hopefully, he will get comfortable right away and be a big part of what we were doing. Certainly part of the plan was to elevate some scoring stress off of Josh.