Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans met with the media to discuss the team's 77-73 loss to NC State in the exhibition game inside First Horizon Coliseum
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Jans’ press conference.
Initial thoughts…
First of all, it was great. I’m so glad we were able to come here and play Coach [Justin] Gainey's team. I know him from being in the [Southeastern Conference] for so long, and we played here — it was home — and we talked about it prior to the game, how special that was for him. If I'm not mistaken, this is their first public outing in Greensboro, so that was really cool for him. I'm happy for him, his family, and all the people that are in his circle, so that was really, really cool. I imagine most coaches in America are saying the same thing right now: there’s so much film to digest, so many learning opportunities, but if this was a real game that counted against the ledger, I'd be pretty disappointed how we lost the game. But credit to them for sticking around. We made our free throws until they really mattered the most. We missed our last four, and then the one we were trying to miss, on virtually the last play of the game, he made it. It just didn't go our way that way.
On Josh Hubbard not being available…
He's been out for a few days. We’ve had a couple opportunities, and he hasn't been able to play in either one of them, but it's not a long-term situation. He'll be back hopefully tomorrow or the next day for practice. Then we have another one of these on Friday at home against Memphis, so he'll get going again. It's like I told a couple of other assistants who I know pretty well. For you guys, I feel bad that he's not playing. You know, when these games come around, you want to play. You hate when you hear someone's injured on the other team because you want to really see how you do. For us, it could be a blessing to be able to play a Willie Burnett, as a freshman, a lot more in this type of situation. Maybe he wouldn't have if Josh was available, and even King Grace playing valuable minutes [would’ve been affected]. For us, it'll be a good thing before the season gets going.
On the advantage the Bulldogs had in the paint and on the offensive glass…
The way we built this team, that's going to have to be a part of our success. I thought we were slow to get going. I felt like, in the second half, it started to make a difference in the score with our second and third opportunities. It's something we work on. It's something that's important to us, but hopefully that'll continue. Obviously, we play in an awesome league in the SEC — I know the ACC is a proud league, they have great tradition as well, and they're going to play against high-level teams and players all year long — but in our league, we have to be able to rebound the basketball to compete.
