STARKVILLE — Josh Hubbard quietly walked into the Mississippi State basketball practice gym and stopped at midcourt with both hands behind his back.
One week prior, he received the loudest ovation of anyone during player introductions at the “Junction Jam” outdoor pep rally. He proceeded to dominate the 3-point contest. The 5-foot-11 guard from Madison is now days away from the start of his sophomore season after he quickly ascended into one of the top guards in the SEC as a freshman.
Expectations are high for the former three-star recruit. Yet, as he fields questions from reporters at midcourt, he’s calm and methodical in his answers. He doesn’t ooze with overconfidence or show any pressure to be the leader of the Bulldogs. The same goes for coach Chris Jans and other players before the season opener against West Georgia on Monday (6:30 p.m., SEC Network+) at Humphrey Coliseum.
The bar has been raised for MSU after consecutive NCAA tournament appearances for the first time in 15 years. Reaching the tournament was once a goal, but now it’s an expectation in Jans’ third season. The new goal is making a deep postseason run for the first time in nearly 30 years.
“I don’t think we feel any pressure at all, at least I don’t,” Jans said. “If (the players) do, they haven’t voiced it to me. We aren’t ranked in the top 25, we aren’t ranked anywhere that I’ve seen or projected a high finish in the SEC. I know the league’s going to be very, very good, but I don’t think we’ve been overhyped at all.”
Why expectations are high for Mississippi State
The last time Mississippi State won an NCAA tournament game was 2008 in the first round. MSU had some success in the early 2000s, winning NCAA tournament games also in 2005, 2004 and 2002, but it hasn’t gotten past the second round in this century. MSU last made the Sweet 16 in 1996, when it also advanced to the program’s only Final Four.
Jans’ 42 wins with the Bulldogs are the most for a coach in his first two seasons in program history.
This season’s hope centers around Hubbard, who was an All-SEC Second Team selection last season with 17.1 points per game. He broke MSU program single-season records for made 3-pointers and freshmen scoring, and is an All-SEC Second Team preseason selection.
“We feel like last year we had a great team and we could’ve done a lot of great things last year. I feel like we did,” Hubbard said. “The success Jans has done ever since he’s gotten here has just gotten better, and so high expectations this year. Just keep growing. We expect nothing but greatness and success.”
Athletics director Zac Selmon announced Tuesday that the team sold its most season tickets since 2011-12.
MORE: How Mississippi State basketball’s Josh Hubbard survived health crisis and caught LeBron’s eye
How Mississippi State can meet high expectations
Still, Mississippi State has to prove it can sustain success and compete at the upper tier of the SEC. Not everyone thinks MSU can, with it being picked 10th out of 16 in the conference preseason poll. If that’s accurate, MSU could be riding the NCAA tournament bubble all season again.
The Bulldogs lost stalwart Tolu Smith III, but added six transfers. Jans thinks this is the most versatile team he’s had since becoming the coach, and they’ll play a different style than the last two seasons.
“It’s pretty obvious that scoring baskets was something we had in the back of our mind in who we brought in to replace the guys who left or graduated,” Jans said. “That was a big push for us was to get guys on the perimeter especially who were multidimensional, that could score for themselves, that could create for others, take some pressure off of Josh on the perimeter with the amount of attention that he deservedly received as the season unfolded last year.”
Two of the six transfers — Kayne Clary and RJ Melendez — have won NCAA tournament games.
Center Michael Nwoko played his freshman season at Miami in 2023-24, a program that also had high standards after a 2023 Final Four appearance and the Elite Eight in 2022.
“A big thing that they always used to say was consistency and just being consistent,” Nwoko said. “I feel like if we just consistently bring it every day in practice, consistent energy in games starting from the top and finishing all the way to the buzzer, I feel like there’s not a lot of teams that can stop us.”
Sam Sklar is the Mississippi State beat reporter for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at ssklar@gannett.com and follow him on X @sklarsam_.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi State basketball: NCAA tournament expected with Chris Jans
