A 24-year college basketball veteran, Chris Jans returns to the Shocker bench in 2016-17 as a Special Assistant.
Regarded as one of the nation’s great basketball minds, Jans has proven to be a valuable resource for the Wichita State coaching staff, helping with practice preparations, film breakdown and scouting reports.
The 47-year old Jans has logged 17 years as an assistant and seven as a head coach with an impressive 179-56 record.
Jans was an assistant coach on Marshall's first WSU staff in 2007-08 and the pair worked in tandem for seven seasons, laying the foundation for the most successful stretch of basketball in Shocker history.
Following WSU's 2011 NIT Championship, Jans was elevated to Associate Head Coach and held the title for three seasons, during which WSU won two Missouri Valley Conference titles, played in a Final Four and recorded the first 35-0 start in NCAA history.
Jans began his coaching career in 1992 as an assistant at NCAA Division III Elmhurst College, in Chicago, Ill. Following his time in Chicago, he took a similar position at NAIA Grand View College in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1994, before receiving his first head coaching position in 1996.
Jans had immediate success at Kirkwood Community College, an NJCAA Division II program in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Though he inherited a team that had finished 11-20 the previous season, he coaxed greatness from the group by establishing a mindset of toughness.
The 1996-97 Eagles team – which included current Shocker assistant coach Greg Heiar at guard -- finished 25-10, won a conference title, and booked the school’s first-ever national tournament trip. For his efforts, the rookie head coach, Jans, was named Region XI Coach of the Year.
Proving that his first year was more than beginner’s luck, Jans’ led his 1997-98 Kirkwood team to even greater heights, capping a 31-6 season with an NJCAA Division II National Championship and National Coach of the Year honors.
Success continued in subsequent JUCO stops at Independence Community College (1998-99), Howard College (2001-03) and Chipola (2003-04), where Jans averaged just over 25 wins per year as head coach. In between, he gained his first taste of Division I with two seasons as an assistant at Idaho under David Farrar from 1999-01.
In the 2003-04 season, Jans guided Howard College (located in Big Spring, Texas) to a 29-4 finish. The team climbed as high as No. 2 in the national polls and finished at No. 15.
A year later, Jans took the reigns at Chipola Junior College in Marianna, Fla., where he once again teamed with Heiar – this time as his assistant coach – for a big run. The team finished 32-5, captured its first conference championship in a decade, and logged a sixth place finish at the NJCAA Division I national tournament.
Jans returned to the Division I ranks in 2004-05 and spent the next three seasons as an assistant coach on Porter Moser’s staff at Illinois State, before joining Gregg Marshall inaugural staff at Wichita State in the spring of 2007.
The Shockers’ Marshall era success was far from overnight. The team struggled to an 11-20 finish in its first season while working to re-stock the talent cupboard. With help from a strong 2008 recruiting class, which included future NBA guard Toure’ Murry and 7-footer Garrett Stutz, the team improved incrementally, landing a CBI bid in 2009 and an NIT home game in 2010 after posting records of 17-17 and 25-10.
A veteran roster produced 24 wins in the 2010-11 regular season and a runner-up finish in the conference standings, but it wasn’t enough to reach the NCAA Tournament. Disappointed faded to elation when the team rolled to five-straight wins and the school’s first-ever NIT Championship.
In 2011-12, WSU completed its climb to the top of the conference standings. A core of seniors, including Murry and Stutz, returned to key the Shocker’s first MVC championship and NCAA Tournament appearance since 2006. The team finished 27-6 and earned a No. 5 seed in the Big Dance before suffering a first-round exit at the hands of 12th-seeded VCU.
Hit hard by graduation, little was expected of the 2012-13 Shockers. Early-season injuries to three starters furthered that narrative, but on the court, the Shockers continued winning, thanks to an influx of talented newcomers.
Cleanthony Early (a high-scoring JUCO transfer and future NBA Draft pick), point guard Malcolm Armstead (a senior transfer from Oregon) and Fred VanVleet (a freshman who would go on to an All-American career of his own) also made an impact.
Jans was instrumental in the discovery and wooing of future All-American and NBA prospect, Ron Baker, a three-sport star from Western Kansas who had flown under the recruiting radar before a last minute offer from WSU. He joined the starting lineup as a redshirt freshman and returned from a pro-longed injury in time to spark the team’s March run.
WSU was given a No. 9 seed when the 2013 NCAA pairings were released and quickly went to work busting brackets across America. The Shockers tripped up Pittsburgh and No. 1 overall seed Gonzaga to reach the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2006. The following weekend, they used quick starts to dispatch La Salle and Ohio State to earn the program’s first Final Four berth since 1965.
WSU led eventual NCAA Champion Louisville most of the way in the National Semifinal before falling 72-68.
In 2013-14, Wichita State became the first team in NCAA history to open a season 35-0. The Shockers spent the entire 2013-14 campaign ranked in the Top 25, rising as high as No. 2 in both the AP and Coaches Polls – the school’s loftiest ranking since the 1981-82 season.
WSU stormed through the Valley with a perfect 18-0 conference record, becoming the first in nearly 30 years to navigate MVC play with an unbeaten mark. The Shockers continued their dominance during the MVC Tournament in St. Louis, winning all three games to capture their first Valley Tournament title since 1987.
VanVleet, Baker and Early made up three of the five first-team all-conference spots, with Early and VanVleet (the MVC Player of the Year) landing All-America honors.
After cooling off No. 16 seed Cal Poly Pamona, 64-37, in their first NCAA action, the Shockers played one of the great games in NCAA Tournament history, losing an epic clash to eventual National Finalist Kentucky, 78-76. Sports Illustrated would later select it as its “Game of the Year” for 2014.
Days after WSU’s historic 2013-14 season came to a close, Jans was named head coach at Bowling Green State University, where – in his very first season – he orchestrated one of the nation’s biggest turnarounds, converting a 20-loss team into 21-game winners. A year removed from a last-place finish, the Falcons landed one game out of first place in the MAC West and earned a bid to the CIT, where they notched the program’s first postseason win since 1975.
In leading BGSU to its first 20-win season in 13 years, Jans was named the 2015 Joe B. Hall National Coach of the Year by the NABC as the nation’s top first-year head coach.
Jans and Bowling Green parted ways after just one season. He put full-time coaching on hold during the 2014-15 school year and returned to Wichita, where he aided the Shocker coaches as a part-time consultant. He rejoined the staff on a full-time basis in the summer of 2016 as Special Assistant.
Jans played at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, from 1987-1991, where he was a three-year starter and captained the team his senior year. While there, he helped the team to a 47-25 record while breaking 16 scoring records and two NCAA Division III records for three-point shooting.
A 1991 graduate of Loras College, he earned a bachelor of art degrees in both marketing and finance. He hails from Fairbank, Iowa, and he and his wife, Sheri, reside in the Wichita area with children Nick and Maddie Gazda.
