Men's Basketball September 29, 2022 Joel Coleman, Senior Writer

STARKVILLE – Mississippi State head men's basketball coach Chris Jans is a lot of things.

He's a motivator. He can be intense. He's demanding. It's what's made him one of the top coaches in all of college hoops.

What he's not, however, is an interior decorator.

A couple of weeks ago, Jans was still sitting in a bland, boring office. Six months into his MSU tenure, his personal on-campus space left a lot to be desired.

"I was getting some grief for having the gray-wall syndrome with nothing anywhere on the walls or on the bookcases," Jans said.

Enter Jans' wife, Sheri, to the rescue.

"He said, 'I've got to get my office looking presentable,'" Sheri recalled with a chuckle.

In a couple of days' time, Sheri had worked her magic. On the shelves behind Chris' desk now hangs several nets cut down in the past – representing the success he's earned previously and is aiming to bring to Starkville.

There's other décor around the office as well that provides a brief glimpse at Jans' journey. There's the cowbell presented to Jans at his introductory press conference at MSU (which rests on a book about legendary college basketball coach John Wooden). There's memorabilia from his Final Four run as an assistant at Wichita State. There's even a shelf dedicated to hoops great Michael Jordan, a nod to Jans' days assisting at Jordan's basketball camps at Elmhurst College in Illinois.

A piece sitting on one of Chris' shelves has a slogan. Work harder than you did yesterday.

Amidst all the cool stuff, it might be easy to miss, but it says so much about who Jans is.

"I'm not a slogan guy," Chris admits. "My wife bought four or five of that type of thing with those mottos and she had them up here and I said, 'Come on now. We're not having those kinds of things up here.' But that one seemed pretty apropos and simple, and I liked it. So, we kind of kept that one of all the ones she'd put around the office. I couldn't talk out of both sides of my mouth and say we're not a slogan team, then have a bunch of slogans in my office. But I wouldn't call that a slogan. It's just a fact."

It's a truth Chris has lived out, both before getting to Starkville and since he arrived back in March when he started to put together his first Bulldog team.

Chris remembers one of his first thoughts when getting to town and taking over at MSU.

"My first priority was the people in the room," he said.

Chris immediately went to work recruiting the guys who were already wearing Maroon and White. Guys like Tolu Smith. Guys like Cameron Matthews and D.J. Jeffries and Shakeel Moore and KeShawn Murphy.

Chris sold his vision and how things would be. Meanwhile players, like Jeffries, considered their options.

"Coach Jans, he talked to me, he stuck it out with me. He understood everything I was going through," Jeffries recalled. "Building a relationship with him…believing in his vision, I wanted to do something good for Mississippi State, so I decided to come back."

Jeffries, Smith, Matthews, Moore and Murphy all ultimately remained as Bulldogs. They saw something special was possible with their new coach. Chris, meanwhile, was thrilled to keep a large chunk of State's veterans.

"When the dust settled, basically we lost one kid that, in our staff's opinion, we didn't want that person to leave," Jans said. "Other than that, we're fine with how it shook out with the kids we had a legitimate shot at retaining once we arrived on campus. So, I would tell you most coaches would take that type of batting average, if you will. Because it's hard. You don't have a relationship with them."

The group of Dawgs that have stuck around quickly built bonds with their new coach. It didn't take them long to see the fire within Chris and how they all wanted the same things.

"He's a competitor," Moore said. "He wants us to compete at the highest level and he wants to win. That's all that matters."

Of course, building the foundation was going to take a lot more than just the returners. Chris had some roster spots to fill and some recruiting to do. Not to even mention, he and Sheri were moving across the country.

Now you won't find Sheri listed on any MSU hoops staff directory. However, her role in helping Chris build the Bulldogs over these last few months can't be understated. While her husband has been focused on putting the best product he can on the floor, Sheri has tended to family matters.

"Obviously, everything happened so quickly," Sheri said, thinking back to March. "I think initially, you have to take a few weeks to let it sink in and kind of figure out where you're going and what it's going to look like and what you're doing with [the house] you're in currently. So, because of the housing shortage throughout the United States, it took us awhile to find where our new home was going to be, and we always try to look at can we accommodate the team at our home. Can we have the team over and families and that kind of thing? It took us awhile, and I think we closed on our house around the end of June."

All the while, Sheri kept Chris out of the moving process as much as possible. He was busy enough.

"Unless it's an aspect that really piques [Chris'] interest, I just try to let him do his thing and not get him involved in some of the other stuff," Sheri said. "It's funny. As coaches, their feet are to the fire immediately. They just move right away and they're in temporary housing and just getting their feet under them and recruiting and that kind of thing. You just kind of get things done on the fly and it all works."

Make no mistake about it, Sheri is an unsung hero. In Chris' journey, she always has been. And while she might not get the credit she deserves, Chris certainly knows how fortunate he is.

"I wouldn't be where I'm at if it wasn't for her," Chris said. "People that know us well and know her well would be the ones saying, 'Absolutely and then some coach.' She's my confidant, if you will, who I share probably as much or more about our team and how I feel and what I'm going through than anyone other than maybe my staff. Then there are times I need to talk to her about things I can't talk to them about. And she knows just enough about basketball to where – she's not trying to tell me what play to run – but she's been around it long enough and has viewed it long enough to understand what we're doing and what's going on.

"She's just so grounded and such a wonderful human being…She's the biggest part of my success than anyone else in my coaching career for sure."

With Sheri at the wheel, Chris could rest easy knowing things were handled on the home front. That left him where he could put his full attention on putting new Mississippi State pieces into place.

(COMING SOON – Chris Jans: Six Months At State – Part 2)

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