Chris Jans describes emotions of notching top-10 win over Texas A&M

No. 21 Mississippi State played its sixth game this season against an AP top-10 team against No. 7 Texas A&M on Tuesday night. It had lost the previous five, with three of those decided by double-digit margins.

It was the proverbial monkey off the back moment for coach Chris Jans and his squad, with the Bulldogs besting the Aggies 70-54 in front of a raucous home crowd.

“Well fortunately we’ve had some wins since we arrived against top-10 teams. But for this particular team it was needed,” Jans said. “If you look at our record against whatever the parameters are, top-six NET or top-20 NET, it’s really, really good. But to take it to the next level and get your confidence that you can play with more teams, that you can compete with the better teams in the league and even across the country, that’s what you need. You need validation.”

Validation achieved.

Mississippi State was dominant from start to finish against Texas A&M. After the lead swapped back and forth in the first half a couple times, the Bulldogs took control in the second half.

The team was forcing turnovers and playing stifling defense. When the game ended, Texas A&M’s field goal percentage was just 35.8%, while it was roughly the same from beyond the arc.

Job done.

“I thought three games in a row we’ve done that: at Georgia, at Ole Miss and then certainly tonight,” Jans said. “When we were in the locker room celebrating, music’s going, I heard Shawn Jones say it two or three times: That’s Bulldog basketball. And I heard him say it just kind of to whomever.

“And when I got a chance, when they quieted it down, I said, ‘Shawn, tell them what you said. Tell them what you said.’ And he said it. And I said, ‘That’s right. That’s who we are. You all knew that before you got here. That needs to be a part of our DNA.’”

If his team gets the message, Mississippi State could be in pretty good shape heading forward from the Texas A&M game.

“It’s been a part of our DNA sometimes, but it hasn’t been on a consistent basis for us,” Jans said. “Hopefully now that they’ve had some success and they’ve seen how it can work for this particular team we’ll have complete buy-in.”

At the very least, the win over Texas A&M should provide a temporary lift.

“We can talk till you’re blue in the face, but after you do that, I would expect them to have a different bounce in their step come Thursday when we start practice,” Jans said.

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