Uncertainty.
It was the only way to describe Bowling Green State University’s men’s basketball season – especially for
first-year head coach Chris Jans.
Jans never knew what to expect from his team. He had an idea of the talent level, but without seeing the
product on the floor in a game setting, there was no telling how his team would turn out.
What has ensued is a refined product. A group that has almost entirely bought into a new system and
attitude. The result is an 8-3 record through its nonconference season.
There have been highs and lows, stumbles, bumps and bruises, but now comes more uncertainty, and that’s
the Mid-American Conference season.
Jans has made it known that he doesn’t know what to expect from a conference he has little familiarity
with. He’s never traveled to most MAC arenas and never faced most of the teams. And with the conference
appearing as deep as ever through nonconference play, even more uncertainty looms.
The Falcons open MAC play at Kent State (9-4) Wednesday at 7 p.m. in a pivotal test to show where Bowling
Green stands as a team.
"Their experience with having a coach there for some time and having been through the league is
certainly an advantage for them," Jans said of Kent.
"The more I watch them on video the more nervous I get," he added. "They’ve got all the
pieces you want to win a game. … They’re awfully scary to watch and I’m sure they’ll be even scarier in
person."
Jans is treating the transition to conference play as he would in any other year. He’s approaching the
18-game MAC schedule as he would if he were still in the Missouri Valley Conference, where he spent the
last seven years under Greg Marshall at Wichita State.
As for guidance, Jans needs little, assuming that the similarities between nonconference play and
conference play are similar in the MAC as compared to the MVC.
"Everybody knows each other better, scouting goes to another level," Jans said. "A lot of
times scoring goes down a little because of the familiarity with teams and coaches. I’m assuming that’ll
be no different."
GRADES: Following Bowling Green’s win over Chicago State on Saturday Jans was asked to grade his team’s
performance through the nonconference season.
Caught by surprise, he thought quickly yet convincingly, dished out a B- for the team that had just won
its eighth game after winning just 12 the year before.
Without a collapse down the stretch at Dayton and a dud of a game to Ferris State, the Falcons could be
sitting at 9-1. But those two games were the precise reason for giving the B-.
"It’s probably because the Ferris State loss is still inside me and I haven’t been able to get it
out of me yet. That was a tough one," Jans said.
"It was our only loss at home and it wasn’t even close," he added. "That knocked us down
quite a bit. … That was one I felt like we should have had."
As a coach that has high standards and expectations, Jans seems to have rubbed that trait into his
family, who would have given the team’s effort a C+ through the first 11 games.
"I asked them what they thought I’d give them and they all said C+," Jans said of his family’s
reaction to the question. "So I gave them a better grade than even my own family thought."