UNLV Basketball: Chris Beard brings track record of quick turnarounds to Rebels

Chris Beard could be exactly the coach that UNLV basketball needs, but he doesn’t come without risk

Chris Beard agreed to take over as the Head Coach of the UNLV Men’s Basketball team eight days after his Arkansas Little Rock Trojans saw their season end in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The deal, first reported by Mark Anderson of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is expected to be for five years.

Beard takes over for Dave Rice. Rice was fired in the middle of an 18-15 season for UNLV.

Prior to hiring Beard, the Rebels were attached to several bigger names.

Shortly after Rice’s firing, Louisville head coach Rick Pitino was rumored to be a possible candidate.

Last week, Cincinnati head coach Mick Cronin visited UNLV , but opted to return to the Bearcats.

Finally, reports surfaced that Saint Mary’s head coach Randy Bennett turned down a contract offer.

And then Late Sunday night, news broke that Beard was picked for the job over New Mexico State’s Marvin Menzies.

While Beard isn’t a big name hire, he is a promising one. The biggest reason for optimism amongst UNLV fans is that Beard has been a consistent winner at several different stops as a head coach.

Beard took over a Little Rock team that underwent massive roster turnover after a 13-win season and hadn’t won more than 23 games since joining the Sun Belt in 1991. He led the Trojans to 30 wins, including a 85-83 double overtime win over 5th seeded Purdue in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Prior to his lone season at Little Rock, Beard was the head coach at NCAA Division II Angelo State and performed a similarly impressive turnaround. The Rams were coming off three straight losing seasons – capped off by a 7-19 year in 2012-13 – before Beard showed up. The fiery coach quickly turned the team around, going 19-9 in his first year before posting the 28-6 record that earned him the Little Rock job a season ago.

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Beard’s winning ways aren’t limited to any specific division or even level of basketball. He spent the 1999-2000 and 2000-01 seasons at a pair of junior colleges and amassed a 44-18 record before a decade as the associate head coach at Texas Tech. He returned to head coaching with the South Carolina Warriors of the ABA, where he posted a 29-2 record.

His final stop before Angelo State was with NCAA Division II McMurray University, where he went 19-10.

While Beard’s track record of winning is impressive, the hire comes with some uncertainties.

One year ago today, Beard was still under contract with Angelo State. Bringing together a roster with 10 new players and turning a 13-win team into a 30-win team in just a season should dispel any notion that Beard’s wins were the result of the previous regime’s leg work.

Still, taking over UNLV, a team that won a national title and played for another in the 1990s, is a serious step up for someone who has currently logged less than a full year as a Division I head coach.

The most obvious spot that this might be apparent is recruiting. The Rebels became accustomed to elite recruits under Rice.

In the last three years, the team had three players leave for the NBA prior to their junior seasons, with at least one more on the way after freshman center Stephen Zimmerman declared for the draft on Sunday. While Beard was an associate head coach in the Big 12 as recently as 2011, his Texas Tech teams weren’t competing for the five-star recruits that UNLV has been bringing in.

Mar 17, 2016; Denver , CO, USA; Arkansas Little Rock Trojans head coach Chris Beard reacts to his team’s scoring run in the second half during Purdue vs Arkansas Little Rock in the first round of the 2016 NCAA Tournament at Pepsi Center. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports /

Adding to the concerns about Beard’s recruiting is the fact that he spent most of his career in Texas and the southeast, and has never had a coaching job west of the state of Texas.

Little Rock’s roster this season reflected that fact: only two players — Lis Shoshi from Peje, Kosovo and Maurius Hill of Homewood, Illinois — were born outside of the regions Beard has coached in. With so little experience recruiting in the area it may be in his best interests to retain at least one of Rice’s assistants in hopes of keeping the pipeline in the area open.

Aside from Beard’s inexperience as a Division I head coach and with recruiting in the Pacific Time Zone, the biggest concern about his transition to UNLV may revolve around Little Rock’s pace this season.

The Trojans played with the seventh slowest tempo in the country, a far cry from Jerry Tarkanian’s Runnin’ Rebel teams in the 1990s that averaged over 90 points per game.

While a successful program could erase any culture shock experienced by wins where neither team cracked 50, that may not be necessary.

In his last season at Angelo State, Beard’s Rams went 19-0 when scoring more than 80 and 9-6 when failing to hit that mark. Little Rock’s snail-like pace may have been more of a product of a team pieced together at the last minute than Beard’s preferred style of play.

If the Rebels can attract talent that’s anywhere near what Dave Rice brought in, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see UNLV play at a more traditional tempo under Beard.

Ultimately, the hiring of Chris Beard should give Rebel fans reason for optimism. While he’s not the big-name hire that many are hoping for, he has proven more than once that he can get programs winning in a hurry.

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If Beard can recruit at a high enough level, there’s no reason that he can’t quickly prove to be an excellent hire for UNLV.