SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — When the final buzzer sounded at the Delta Center on Saturday, Mississippi State basketball had life again.

The Bulldogs, now 5-5, led for a total of 6:45 out of 40 minutes of basketball in Salt Lake City, and trailed by as many as 17 points in both halves.

Head coach Chris Jans’ squad has had a rocky start to the 2025-26 season. Road defeats to Big 12 opponents early on and heartbreaking losses to SMU and San Francisco at home put the season in jeopardy through just nine games. Yet those losses have had positive performances in between, and that was the case again on Saturday as Ja’Borri McGhee and Jayden Epps led the Bulldogs to a late comeback win.

“We just weren’t playing very well,” Jans said. “There were some fired-up huddles from me to them. We had great energy in practice and shootaround yesterday. We know that isn’t a predictor very often, but then we came out, and I just thought we were flat.”

The team traveled to Utah on Friday, with around six hours of flight time against the jet stream beforehand. More than the travel, Jans looked to another factor in his team’s slow start: altitude.

“We’re not an ‘excuse’ type of program, but you play at sea level and go to altitude, it makes a difference. It really does. We tried to do what we could to minimize it as best we could, and the research always says get to the last 10 minutes of the game. Everyone is tired, and it wears off, so we subbed pretty liberally to do that.”

Flu Game, Part II?

The Bulldogs were able to shed their sluggish start, and even with Josh Hubbard limited because of a swollen ankle, the team kept scoring.

McGhee and Epps both emerged late after shouldering the scoring burden for stretches of the game, but it was the explosion from beyond the arc that gave an extra edge to the Bulldogs.

McGhee was 5-7 from distance, shooting 3-4 in the second half to help land a knockout blow against the Utes.

What State fans didn’t know while watching the game, or even until Chris Jans’ radio show, was that McGhee put up a career-best 29 points after a night of illness.

“He’d been sick for a couple days, and some body soreness,” Jans said. “Wasn’t participating in full possessions in practice and shootarounds. He was coughing all day long, we were trying to get as much fluids in him as we could, and then he went out there.”

Jans noted his teammates were joking about McGhee playing through the symptoms in the same building where Michael Jordan put up 38 on the Utah Jazz in the 1997 NBA Finals with flu-like symptoms, which was later suspected to be food poisoning.

The stakes weren’t quite as high for McGhee, but there is little doubt about the disparity of emotions that would have come with a loss instead of a win. McGhee’s 29 points made winning a reality, as did some defensive work to make the head coach proud.

“Some assistants were behind the scenes urging him on before the game, and certainly he played a big part,” Jans added. “I thought what happened equally was we started turning them over. We finally scored off our defense.”

Defense turns the ship

The complementary play finally came through for MSU in a big way. The Utes committed 14 turnovers, with MSU forcing 10 steals and recording 22 points off of turnovers.

Just as important as the scoring was MSU’s defensive awakening in the final 10 minutes of the game. The Bulldogs held their hosts to just 10-28 shooting, defending the perimeter well with just 2-13 triples, and shut down the Utes away from the free throw line down the stretch.

Over the final six minutes of the game, Utah’s shooters failed to convert a single attempt from the field.

It was a stark change in vibes from MSU, and the final result didn’t seem possible after the first half-hour of action.

“There were a couple of possessions where I couldn’t believe we didn’t compete better. The compete part was making me upset,” Jans said. “We had some spirited timeouts, and for whatever reason, we got a break or two, the ball bounced our way, and then the confidence came back. You could see it from where I stood. They were playing better, harder and competing more. We figured out a way.”

The level of effort, defensive focus, and clutch shot-making by the Bulldogs was a glimpse at what the team is capable of. It has been there for stretches of both wins and losses this season, but to put it together with the game on the line was a potentially crucial turn in the season for Jans’ team.

“We needed it. If i’m being honest… it didn’t feel great for the first half and a lot of the second,” Jans said. “Really, this is how we’re going to do this. We’re not going to leave everything on the floor, and we had some pointed timeouts. You can talk all you want until you’re blue in the face, but they’ve got to do it. They’ve got to play with that bigger vitality and togetherness. Hopefully, this is something where you get a big win on the road and it’s a comeback variety, it can bind you a little bit better. We’ve got two more games before we have a break, they’re both at home, and we’re looking forward to playing at home for sure.”