Chris Jans: Cameron Matthews was 'Different' vs. North Texas

Mississippi State forward Cameron Matthews led the Bulldogs in four statistical categories in Sunday's win over North Texas, but head coach Chris Jans believes he's capable of playing like that "every single night."

Mississippi State men's basketball forward Cameron Matthews has been known as the do-it-all Bulldog throughout the young season. The senior is top-2 on the team in points (9.5), rebounds (6.7), assists (3.2), steals (2.4) and blocks (0.9) per game.

Matthews may have turned in his best game during Sunday's dominant 72-54 victory over North Texas, as he tallied nine points, 12 rebounds, seven assists, five steals, three blocks and zero turnovers. Besides the point total, each of those statistical categories was his personal best of the season and he led the Bulldogs in each of them.

Head coach Chris Jans was obviously impressed with Matthews' performance and said so during the postgame press conference.

"He was all over the floor," Jans said. "He flirted with a triple-double. He could've maybe gotten one of those tonight, but he was different today. His motor was revved and he had a chip on his shoulder."

As content as Jans was with his forward's performance, he used an interesting analogy to explain that Matthews has the skill set to turn this outlier of a game into a typical night.

"It's like guys that run sprints at practice and all of a sudden, they're running running running and one run is 3-4 seconds less than what they normally do," Jans said. "Then the cat's out of the bag and I say 'What are you doing? You have it in there, let's use it all the time.' (Matthews) is the same way. There's no reason why he's not capable of playing with that kind of energy every single night."

Jans stressed this because he believes that Matthews' nightly performance is crucial to the team's success in more ways than one.

"I think (Matthews) led us to a play a little bit harder because people tend to follow his lead," Jans said. "He just has to understand that's his responsibility for the team and he's got to do it every day."

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