Arkansas Basketball: 7 candidates to replace Eric Musselman as Head Coach

Chris Beard

We won’t tiptoe around this: there are a lot of people already sold on Beard as the next basketball coach at Arkansas. It’s a move that makes sense for a lot of reasons for the Razorbacks and there’s no question that he’s one of the biggest names that could potentially make the move to Fayetteville.

Beard has been a successful junior college head coach, spent many years as a collegiate assistant, and got Little Rock to an NCAA Tournament upset win in his first D1 head coaching job. He’d lead Texas Tech to the national title game in 2019 before bolting for Texas two years later. His time in Austin lasted less than two seasons due to his arrest for domestic violence. However, no charges were filed and he was hired by Ole Miss a few months later, winning 20 games in year one with the Rebels.

This head coach is a winner through and through, with levels of great success basically everywhere he’s been. Even after that awful situation last year, Beard remains a brilliant basketball mind who had historic seasons at Little Rock and Texas Tech and could’ve been on that same route with the Longhorns, who reached the Elite Eight two months after his firing. Make no mistake that many in Arkansas is willing to forgive his past mistakes and welcome him aboard, and they’d be getting one hell of a coach.