Chris Jans addresses Ja'Borri McGhee's status with Mississippi State after cryptic post

It’s never easy managing the emotions of college athletes. That’s a major challenge across the country, and for Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans, it’s a challenge that recently came home with Ja’Borri McGhee.

McGhee left a cryptic post on Instagram. That made some people around Mississippi State concerned about his status moving forward. However, when Jans was asked about the post, he pushed back on what the idea of cryptic was.

“Cryptic? What does that mean?” Jans asked.

The post is no longer available on Instagram. In fact, there’s no posts at all on McGhee’s Instagram page. However, he does post stories. The most recent of those, and the only one up at the time of writing, depicts crows on wires with a cloudy backdrop. “Love y’all” and a peace sign can also be seen.

“Yeah, I don’t know about the cryptic,” Jans said. “But we play a highly intense, emotional game that there’s a lot riding on it. I think as humans we all think, say, in this era, post things in the heat of the moment that, eventually, we wish we could take back. Our basketball team is a family. I don’t know about you, but every family I’ve been involved with, stuff happens, especially behind the scenes. We just work things out behind the scenes.”

Ultimately, Chris Jans wanted to make one thing clear in all of this. Ja’Borri McGhee is still with the team and everything is good.

“I walked through the gym, I don’t know, about an hour ago,” Jans said. “And he was down there, shooting baskets. So, I think we’re all good.”

Ja’Borri McGhee is a very experienced player in college. However, this is his first season with Mississippi State. From 2022-2024, he played and was a star at the JUCO level. From there, he was able to make the leap to Division I, playing at UAB last season. He would again transfer up, landing at Mississippi State ahead of this season.

A year ago at UAB, he started all 37 games for the Blazers. This season, McGhee has started six of 14 games. It’s been six games since he started. His minutes played last year averaged out at 25.6 minutes per game, while this season it’s 23.6 minutes per game.

In the time he has spent at Mississippi State, McGhee is averaging 9.6 points, 2.6 rebounds, and 1.6 assists per game. That’s on 44 percent shooting from the field and 45 percent from three-point range.

Mississippi State is now on a five-game winning streak. They’ll test that success out on Wednesday when the Bulldogs are set to host Oklahoma.