STARKVILLE — Mississippi State men’s basketball looked to be at a tipping point on Sunday in a loss to San Francisco at Cadence Bank Arena in Tupelo.

The team fell short in a comeback attempt after losing star scorer Josh Hubbard to an ankle injury in the opening minutes of action.

Jayden Epps led the team with 21 points, hitting five shots from beyond the arc as he and the Bulldogs put up 40 in the second half.

It wasn’t enough, as MSU fell 65-62, and the weight of the defeat was evident after the game.

Hubbard returned to the bench, but did not play. He was able to walk on his own and had a wrap around his right ankle. Despite his absence, the Bulldogs were able to score, but still came up short.

Epps talked about the defeat with a heavy tone, but kept an ambitious attitude about the team’s mentality going forward.

“There’s no big thing or big area, I just feel like we just listen to (Jans) and play Mississippi State basketball,” Epps said. “The culture has been around here. Once we do that, and we already know how to do it, we just lock in. We get everybody on board, and we just keep working. Every day is not going to be your day; you’re not going to win every game. We feel like we should have won this one, but it happens. We’re just going to get back to work and keep grinding.”

Uncertainty at Guard

While Jans didn’t rule out a return for Hubbard, he also didn’t give a timeline for such a return.

His return by walking on his own strength was a clear positive sign after not putting any weight on his foot when leaving the court, but a rewatch of the replay shows that he rolled over his right ankle pretty badly. Still, Hubbard is working to return as soon as he can.

“Josh is obviously a hard-working kid. Fortunately for us, our trainer, Bryce, is a hard-working guy as well. I know they’re going to be working around the clock to try to get him back as soon as he can, but I don’t have a timetable.”

In the meantime, Jans has to find answers at guard, and may have done so in the second half against San Francisco.

Ja’Borri McGhee stepped into a bigger role at the point position, and he shared ball-handling duties with Jayden Epps, who caught fire shooting in the second half. It was the response needed to kickstart a comeback attempt, but the initial response wasn’t there in the first half. 

“I always feel like when you have time to prepare for something like that it’s a little bit easier than when it happens a couple of minutes into the game,” Jans said of the response to losing Hubbard. “We’ll probably be more prepared if (Hubbard misses time), and at halftime, we made some major adjustments, especially on the offensive end, that proved to be good ones. We scored almost twice as many points in the second half as we did in the first. It was almost like an ‘is this really happening?’ type deal for some guys on our team, I think, and even some of the coaches. It was obviously a big blow, it was a big punch in the gut… to lose someone so valuable to your team, but that happens in sports. You’ve got to be able to move on quickly and figure it out.”

On Utah

The Utes are 7-3, but have lost three of their last five games. Despite a gritty 75-74 win over Ole Miss, they’ve also suffered surprise home losses to Cal Poly and Grand Canyon with another loss in their first road game at Cal.

Head coach Alex Jensen, a former Ute player himself, is in his first year at the helm of the program after spending 12 years as an assistant in the NBA with the Utah Jazz and Dallas Mavericks.

“Utah is a very well-coached team. Coach Jensen is a first-year coach, but he’s not new to coaching college basketball,” Jans said. “He played there and was an unbelievable player… and his teams are very well organized. They run a very good offense, so they’re going to be a handful.”

The Utes have four players averaging double-digit points per game, with Terrence Brown at 21.6 and Don McHenry at 17.4 from their respective guard positions. As a team, they average 81.4 points per game, and have a high-scoring habit that could give the Bulldogs trouble.

MSU averages 78.3 points per game while opponents average 78.6 points against its defense, which has made for several close games regardless of the opponent.

One positive for MSU has been the play of Jayden Epps. His recovery from a hard fall against Houston in an exhibition game before the season took longer than anticipated, but since playing with regularity, he has become a reliable option for Jans.

Epps has 21 points in three of his last four games and at least one assist in all but one game this season, both important categories to boost for playing without Hubbard, but above all the head coach has been impressed with his defense.

“I think he’s been very consistent the last three or four games, on both ends,” Jans said of Epps. “I’ve told the team this, that his buy-in to being assignment correct and being on it defensively has been a shot in the arm for us in a positive way. He’s really working on that end of the court, really paying attention. His motor is going, doing a good job of guarding his man, and then being in position when he’s not guarding his man.”