Head coach Chris Jans talks Jayden Epps, King Grace and Bulldog defense

The road gets no easier for Mississippi State as the Bulldogs head down the closing stretch pf the regular season. Mississippi State travels to No. 17 Alabama Wednesday for an 8 p.m. tip-off and the game is televised by ESPNU.

State is 13-14 overall and 5-9 in the SEC while Alabama is 20-7 overall and 10-4 in the league, good enough for second place in the SEC behind Florida. On Monday. head coach Chris Jans met with the media to discuss the Tide and updated the recently-injured Jayden Epps among other topics.

Q: Any update on Jayden Epps?
Jans: Fortunately, Jayden avoided any major injury. The way it looked and walking out there, it was scary for him, Jayden’s family, his coaches and everybody. He had a lot of pain. But fortunately and like I said, they looked at him when we got home and lur doctors looked at him that afternoon with his injury. In terms of going forward, he’s going to rehab and play when he is available.

Q: If Jayden is unable to play Wednesday, where’s your confidence in guys like Ja’Borri McGhee and King Grace having to play more minutes?
Jans: Yeah, we just went through that with the second half against South Carolina. Ja’Borri had to play more minutes and King Grace had to play some two (guard) when he’d mostly been playing three lately. So it is kind of next man up mentality.

Q: Obviously, when teammates see something like that with Jayden it can affect them. How do you get them to re-focus after that?
Jans: Looking back in real time for that particular game, it was a pretty big gut punch. He was playing well and had 13 (points) at the half. Certainly him being okay is paramount. But as the game unfolded and not having him available in the second half, that was a tough hit because of our team and more specifically, he was in a good place in that particular game. Josh (Hubbard) had struggled in the first half and picked up the slack. We were within striking distance going into halftime so it was tough that way. We’ve all been through it coaches and players. Injuries are part of the game and we’ve got to figure it out.

Q: You have already faced Alabama this year much like facing Ole Miss before. How do you handle those situations and do you look back at that first game much?
Jans: Yeah we use all the information that we have at our fingertips. Certainly we got tape from the first time we played them. For both games it will be a tool we exercise we use with our players and staff to try to put ourselves in better position to execute better. But at the same time, people can tweak it and some cases are adding players to their roster. So we’ll have to keep an eye on that situation in terms of Alabama. But the tape that we have we will use to try to scout. But the one thing about it with your players, it doesn’t take quite as long to understand the personnel part of it of who we are playing against. They’ve got their memories and we will refresh them and try to put them in the best position that we can.

Q: King Grace will play more of a role down the stretch here, especially if Epps misses a couple of games. What have you seen from King lately?
Jans: I mean, King has had more opportunities as the season has unfolded. What excites me about him is the kid has no fear. He’s got a lot of confidence once he gets in the game and he gets right at it. He’s an athlete. He’s got a toughness about him and is very coachable. Like most of the players, and each level is different, he is still getting adjusted to the pace of the play and how good everyone is on the floor.

When he gets into the game and then understanding how he can insert himself into helping the team. He’s had some really good games and had some games where it is more of a learning process for him. But we like his growth, like his future. What I really like about him is every day he shows up to work and gets after it and has been very coachable.

Q: What are you wanting to see from the team in terms of moral and confidence as you enter these last four games?
Jans: I am more worried about just today. I don’t look at it as worrisome or what I expect from them the last four games, I am worried about today’s practice, our approach to practice. Yeah, it was an emotional week prior to the South Carolina game. We had the rivalry game, which was really important to us and our guys played like it was. Then certainly, the Wednesday game against Auburn didn’t lack for emotion throughout the game. We talked a lot going into South Carolina about staying in that state of mind and about not having the same focus, not having the same enthusiasm. We talked a lot about it.

Unfortunately. I didn’t feel like we had the same attention to detail. I didn’t feel like our defense had the same pop. You got to give South Carolina credit. They had some guys that made some shots that they hadn’t been making. Some of them we were okay with early in the game of the guys shooting the ball because you got to play the numbers at times. You can’t guard everybody the same. So we put them in that position.

We didn’t lose that game because of our offense. We lost that game because of our defense. Our offense was good enough even on a day where Josh did not play to his standard. But that was the most disappointing thing. After having two pretty good defensive games, especially in the first half of those games, we didn’t have the same bite. That is probably the most disappointing take from the weekend because we thought, hey, they’ve got this figured out. They understand it’s something it has to be something we do every single outing. Obviously, it wasn’t on Saturday.