STARKVILLE — The college basketball season is still five months away, but the work starts now for Chris Jans and Mississippi State.
Jans has seen the Bulldogs reach the NCAA Tournament three times in three seasons, but has yet to guide the team to a tournament win. The lights have been a bit too bright, but last season especially, the Bulldogs were weighed down by familiar problems throughout conference play and the postseason: rebounding and consistent outside shooting
Jans knows it, and that’s been a primary focus in who to target in recruiting, the transfer portal and now offseason workouts.
“Every year it’s different,” he said. “When the dust settles, certainly you know who you’ve signed in the November recruiting class, but you’ve kind of got to wait a little bit to know exactly what you’re seeking, depending on portal departures.”
With the loss of graduate Cam Matthews and the departures of Keshawn Murphy and Michael Nwoko through the transfer portal, the Bulldogs suddenly had even less size and depth below the basket. Those departures turned a typical team need into a major problem, one Jans and his staff addressed through the transfer portal.
The arrivals of Achor Achor and Jayden Ballard in the frontcourt and Amier Ali on the wing mean the Bulldogs will be bigger next season, and ideally more aggressive on the boards at both ends of the floor.
“That was in real time, combine that with how we felt a lot during the season, we needed to get bigger,” Jans continued. “We needed to get better on the glass, which was hard for me to admit because historically my teams have been really good in the rebounding department. We felt like we had too many games where that was maybe a difference in the win-loss column.”
The Bulldogs were pretty middle of the road in rebounding margin, but they had the fourth-worst opponent rebounds per game average in the Southeastern Conference. It showed in big spots with second-chance points allowed, with Baylor scoring 22 second-chance points from 15 offensive rebounds in the Bulldogs’ first-round NCAA Tournament exit.
A lack of rebounding was also an issue in big games against Alabama and Kentucky, notable home losses that could have swung the other way for MSU had the Bulldogs been better at limiting second-chance opportunities.
Mississippi State ranked 306th out of 355 Division I teams in 3-point shooting percentage, recording a disappointing 31.44% from beyond the arc as a team. On defense, the Bulldogs allowed their opponents to shoot 35.8% on average from downtown from 866 3-point shot attempts, a number inflated through a combination of poor rebounding and second-chance points allowed.
It’s an area of focus for Jans, but not one he will be able to measure progress for until the season gets going. The return of star scoring guard Josh Hubbard will help tremendously, as he led the team in points per game and 3-point percentage, but the rest of the team will need to catch up to both relieve some of the burden and open the floor up for him.
“We thought going into the year, just to be frank, that we had addressed it,” Jans said of shooting from distance. “I thought we had enough guys that could shoot the ball, and for whatever reason as a group we didn’t end up shooting it as well as we anticipated, nor than we even started the season (shooting). I don’t know all the whys of that, but those were the two biggest areas we wanted to address. Having more guys who could shoot the ball and certainly rebound the basketball.”
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