STARKVILLE — As Mississippi State keeps winning and keeps climbing up the rankings under head coach Chris Jans, Bulldogs fans are finding it harder to get their hands on tickets for home games.
Reserved tickets are sold out for Saturday night’s game between No. 14 MSU and No. 6 Kentucky, as well as for next Saturday when the Bulldogs (14-1, 2-0 Southeastern Conference) host rival Ole Miss. As of Thursday morning, less than 500 reserved tickets remained for the game on Jan. 29 against No. 5 Alabama.
“When we arrived, we talked about trying to create that atmosphere that everybody wants,” Jans said. “The students, to me, are the ones who have spearheaded it. They’ve been very consistent since we arrived. Our staff and our players have tried to develop relationships with those folks across campus, being visible and trying to work with them.”
After renovations at Humphrey Coliseum were completed prior to the 2023-24 season, the student section was expanded to include almost the entire area behind the north basket. The students have been engaged during games this season, most notably for MSU’s 33-point rout over Pittsburgh in early December.
But even last Saturday’s SEC opener against South Carolina, before many students were back on campus for the start of the spring semester, drew a crowd of 8,075 fans to The Hump. The current post-renovation capacity is roughly 9,100.
Every men’s home game this season except Prairie View A&M and Bethune-Cookman has had an attendance of at least 8,000, after the Bulldogs had seven sellouts last year.
“It’s not just a foregone conclusion that students are supposed to come to the games,” Jans said. “We’re trying to be interactive with them, and as a fan, everybody knows that (when) the students are there, it creates a little more raucous environment and everybody gets a little more involved. It’s been awesome to see, and hopefully it’ll continue building.”
Scouting Kentucky
The Wildcats (12-3, 1-1) have hardly missed a beat after longtime coach John Calipari left for Arkansas and took several players with him via the transfer portal. Kentucky replaced Calipari with former Wildcats forward Mark Pope, most recently the head coach at BYU.
Pope and Jans coached against each other for two years in the WAC, with Pope at Utah Valley and Jans at New Mexico State. Jans’ Aggies won the conference in 2018 and 2019 with Pope’s Wolverines finishing second both times.
“Always had a lot of respect for him as a human being, as a person and definitely as a coach,” Jans said. “He’s an excellent coach and a really hard-nosed recruiter. He works at it. And with him being an alum and a former player, I knew he’d hit the ground running. And with the name brand, I couldn’t imagine him having any problems having an elite roster. He’s done that. They’re probably where I expected them to be.”
Kentucky has big wins over Duke and Gonzaga in non-conference play, though the Wildcats did fall at Clemson and suffer a 20-point, neutral-site loss to Ohio State. After opening SEC play by outlasting a top-10 Florida team in a 106-100 shootout, Kentucky was upset 82-69 at Georgia on Tuesday night.
The Wildcats are third nationally with 88.8 points per game, and their offense is remarkably balanced. Otah Ogweh leads Kentucky in scoring at 15.7 points per contest, but he is one of just five Wildcats averaging double figures, and that’s not even including 7-foot center Amari Williams, who averages 9.9 points and 8.2 rebounds. Andrew Carr complements Daniels in the frontcourt as a stretch-four.
Sixth man Koby Brea leads the SEC in 3-point percentage at a shade under 50 percent (47-for-95). Point guard Lamont Butler is fifth in the conference in assists per game, and Jaxson Robinson fills out the starting backcourt.
“They’re just so explosive offensively,” Jans said. “It’s not as if they’re not equipped to handle off nights by certain individuals. It’s pretty remarkable to have that many guys on a consistent basis averaging that many points over the course of a season. They just run their stuff with so much confidence and so much pace.”
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