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Ole Miss Basketball: 3 takeaways from the hiring of head coach Chris Beard

By Joey Loose

Oct 19, 2022; Kansas City, Missouri, US; Texas Longhorns coach Chris Beard is interviewed during the mens Big 12 Basketball Tipoff media day at T-Mobile Center. Mandatory Credit: William Purnell-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 19, 2022; Kansas City, Missouri, US; Texas Longhorns coach Chris Beard is interviewed during the mens Big 12 Basketball Tipoff media day at T-Mobile Center. Mandatory Credit: William Purnell-USA TODAY Sports /
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Tennessee Volunteers guard B.J. Edwards (1) guards Mississippi Rebels guard Amaree Abram Steve Roberts-USA TODAY Sports
Tennessee Volunteers guard B.J. Edwards (1) guards Mississippi Rebels guard Amaree Abram Steve Roberts-USA TODAY Sports /

Where does Ole Miss factor in the SEC?

When the Rebels hired Davis back in 2018, the SEC was in a state of flux and in a much different position. You can look at the SEC teams in the NCAA Tournament this season and all of them except Kentucky were in a much different position back then. Bruce Pearl and Rick Barnes have been at Auburn and Tennessee respectively for a number of years, but their programs really started to take off in these last five seasons, and they are not alone.

Alabama made a dynamite hire in Nate Oats and Arkansas struck similar gold with Eric Musselman. Missouri is looking much improved this season under Dennis Gates while rival Mississippi State is back in the Big Dance in their first season under Chris Jans. Florida and Vanderbilt have been up and down in recent years, but both programs are likely to contend for postseason bids in the near future, while Texas A&M is really starting to click under Buzz Williams this year.

When you take a step back and look at where this league sits currently, Ole Miss certainly has an uphill battle. Even though they might add one of the best head coaches in Beard, winning is not going to come easy and it won’t happen overnight. This league was far winnable before Oats or Musselman showed up. In fact, Ole Miss actually made the NCAA Tournament in Davis’s first season back in 2019, just a few weeks before those two hires came to pass and changed the league.

What does success look like for Ole Miss? For Beard, it’s about making history, which he already did at both Little Rock and Texas Tech and was trying to do at his alma mater. You don’t need more than two hands to count the number of trips this program has made to the NCAA Tournament, but Beard wants to change that. Their only Sweet Sixteen came in 2001 and the Rebels have just five NCAA Tournament wins all-time, the same number Beard got in a single postseason at Texas Tech. He wants to rewrite that history and turn the Rebels into a postseason contender, but can he get it done, especially with Oklahoma and Texas joining the league in the coming years?

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