Last season was a humbling experience — Chris Jans's own word, from his first press conference of the summer. The numbers explain why: Mississippi State went 13–19 in 2025–26, the program's worst record since 2014–15, and missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time in Jans's tenure. It was the first losing season of his entire head-coaching career, just the third time in ten years one of his teams didn't dance. "I hadn't been through that as a head coach," Jans admitted, "and certainly didn't prepare for it." So he did what great coaches do: he flipped the roster. The 2026–27 Bulldogs are Jans's answer — seven transfers, three freshmen, an international addition — built around the one thing no other SEC team has.
That one thing is Josh Hubbard, and it can't be overstated how much he matters. The three-time All-SEC guard is the only returning Bulldog who started a game last season; sophomore King Grace (12.1 minutes a night) is the only other returner who played at all. Hubbard could have left — he tested the NBA draft waters, and the portal would have thrown everything at him — and chose Starkville instead. Consider what Mississippi State is getting back: one of the ten highest scorers in the country, a player who took 33.8 percent of his team's shots while on the floor (12th-highest usage in all of Division I, per KenPom), a career 34.9 percent three-point shooter on a staggering 8.8 attempts per game. He is, by the numbers, one of the most prolific volume shooters in America, and he's 195 points from breaking Mississippi State's all-time scoring record. Every great Jans team has had a bell-cow. This one has a thoroughbred.
Jans was blunt about the offseason mission: "Get (Hubbard) more scoring help." Last year Hubbard had to carry the load too much, too often, and the roster reconstruction is engineered around taking the weight off. The crown jewel of the portal class is R.J. Johnson, the Kennesaw State combo guard who was the MVP of the Conference USA Tournament — 51 points and ten threes across three games, 14.5 points a night on 42 percent from deep for the season, 15 points in the NCAA Tournament against Gonzaga. Out of Grissom High School in Huntsville, Alabama, Johnson had SEC offers out of high school from Alabama, LSU, and Georgia, sat out a year with a labrum tear, and came back better. He's a redshirt junior with something to prove, and he's exactly the kind of bigger, battle-tested guard Jans wanted around Hubbard.
The rest of the backcourt got the same treatment. Tajuan Simpkins arrives from Oregon with proven high-major scoring. Ja'Borri McGhee comes from UAB as another ball-handling option. Jayden Epps, the Georgetown transfer who averaged 12.8 points in Big East play, can create his own shot — the exact skill that eases the late-clock pressure on Hubbard. Thomas Bassong, who started 17 games at Florida State, and Southern transfer Ashton Magee add wing depth. Then there's the freshman class: four-star guards Willie Burnett III and Jalyn Collingwood, center Tristan Reed, forward Tee Bartlett. Jans has raised the caliber of his high school recruiting every year, and this group has real long-term upside even if the freshmen aren't asked to save the season.
The frontcourt, Jans admitted, starts with rebounding and interior play — "You can't compete in this league without being able to rebound and defend the paint," he said, and the SEC's added size at Kentucky and Alabama shaped the whole approach. Cameron Matthews, the senior defensive anchor, and Jimmy Bell Jr., the paint presence, return to complement the newcomers, with freshman size like Bartlett and Jamarion Davis-Fleming developing behind them. It's the deepest frontcourt Jans has had in Starkville, even if the top end is unproven.
The stakes are clear and Jans hasn't ducked them. The goal is a fourth NCAA Tournament in five years — an easier task with the field expanding to 76 teams — but it's about more than an invitation. Mississippi State hasn't won an NCAA Tournament game under Jans, and that drought is the shadow over everything. The SEC slate offers the chances: Florida, Kentucky, and Texas all come to the Hump this season, with the usual brutal road stretches early. In this league, a January that goes right can build a résumé fast; a January that goes wrong can bury you by Valentine's Day.
The Hump — Humphrey Coliseum, 10,575 strong in the heart of Starkville — remains one of the SEC's great home courts when the Bulldogs are rolling, and the fan base has been through the full arc of modern program history. The 1996 Final Four under Richard Williams, with Erick Dampier inside and the upset of No. 1 UConn in the Sweet Sixteen, is the mountaintop. The Rick Stansbury era brought the 2004 SEC championship and regular-season dominance, with Lawrence Roberts and Timmy Bowers and the shot-blocking legend Jarvis Varnado rewriting the record books. Ben Howland got the program back to respectability. Jans, hired in 2022, immediately delivered three straight NCAA appearances — and now, coming off the worst season of his career, he's betting everything on the oldest formula in the sport: a superstar guard, a deeper roster around him, and a coach with something to prove. Josh Hubbard chose to come back. Now the Bulldogs have to make it worth it.
