NCAA Basketball: 10 best head coaching hires of 2023 offseason

2. Chris Beard (Mississippi)

Considering the bevy of talent in the SEC these days, it’s not shocking that the Rebels made a coaching change. Kermit Davis was under .500 in three of his last four seasons, though this program isn’t exactly the forefront of basketball success. They’ve made a single-digit number of trips to the NCAA Tournament and have only been to a single Sweet Sixteen over two decades ago. The brass is hoping that Beard can change that, much like he did at Texas Tech a few years ago.

It’s been a wild journey for Beard, who was a graduate assistant while a student at Texas in the early 90’s and has bounced around ever since. He had a long stint as an aide at Texas Tech and led the program to the national title game as head coach in 2019. Beard has been a head coach at seven different colleges, with bursts of success at nearly every level of basketball. His tenure at Texas ended after accusations of domestic violence a few years ago, but Ole Miss brought him to Oxford after that case was dropped.

As previously mentioned, basketball success isn’t expected in Mississippi. If Beard can engineer a breakthrough in this difficult SEC, then he’s going to be a legend in this state when it comes to basketball. He did incredible work at Little Rock and Texas Tech before flaming out early at Texas; having a head coach like this is just unheard of for this program. Nobody knows how long Beard will be at Ole Miss, especially if he brings newfound success for the Rebels. If that happens and Beard can stay out of the headlines for other reasons, then Ole Miss might become a new power in the SEC.