Chris Beard reflects on importance of turning Ole Miss program around, making NCAA Tournament

When Chris Beard met with Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter before being named the Rebels head men’s basketball coach, their conversation revolved around rebuildinging the program into a consistent winner.

For Beard, that meant not only making the NCAA Tournament, but going on a run in March Madness.

Now, as the calendar officially turns to March, the second-year Ole Miss coach appears to have checked off at least one of those boxes with the Rebels entrenched in the upcoming 2025 NCAA Tournament — at least according to ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi‘s latest Bracketology — though he’s hardly satisfied.

“It’s what I was hired to do. It’s the conversation the chancellor and Keith and I had, and I take that very, very serious. I never forget the bottom line. So, for me personally, which is a small part of this, this was the job we were hired to do,” Beard said following Saturday’s 87-84 win over Oklahoma.

“The other thing, just the message for the team, Keith and I never talked about making the NCAA Tournament, it never came up in conversation. We talked about making a run, which is also known as winning, and, I think, being one of those teams that can win six games in three weekends.”

Whether the unranked Rebels (20-9, 9-7 SEC) have what it takes to make a deep run this postseason is yet to be seen, but Saturday’s home win — which snapped a three-game losing streak — was certainly encouraging in that effort.

Ole Miss will close out the final week of the regular season hosting No. 5 Tennessee on Wednesday before traveling to face No. 3 Florida next Saturday. Then it’s on to Nashville for the 2025 SEC Tournament inside Bridgestone Arena.

“So, I’m very happy for the players, where we are in this position, but we have so much more work to do,” Beard concluded. “Yeah, we’re trying to build this program, it’s Year 2. … We’ll see what we can get done here the rest of this month.”

Chris Beard on mindset entering March games: ‘It’s all must win’

After going on a three-game losing streak, Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard went into Saturday’s game against Oklahoma knowing his team needed a win. That’s exactly what his team got too, winning a tight battle.

After the game, Beard pushed back on the idea that Ole Miss was pressing after losing three games in a row. Instead, he emphasized that his team needs the correct mentality. That’s because, come March, every game is vital.

“I don’t see it like that [winning being a relief]. It’s not coach speak,” Chris Beard said. “The TV reporter today after pregame… and he had mentioned we had dropped three in a row. I didn’t realize that. This is the SEC. It’s an 18-round fight. You better have a short memory. We all kind of recognize when we’re on a winning streak because other people’s perceptions change. We enjoy it. I don’t think of it as losing. You win the game or you run out of time. Either way, you get back to work quickly.”

Coming in off a three-game losing streak, Ole Miss found itself in a position where a loss would drop the team to .500 in SEC play this season. Ole Miss earned the win, though, to move to 9-7 and start building momentum once again for the postseason. They did that, largely, on the back of shooting 45.5 percent from three-point range.

“With that being said, Captain Obvious, we need to protect our home court today. We understand the opportunities that we have coming after this game,” Beard said. “Must-win? Absolutely, but it’s March. What win in March isn’t a must-win? I guess some teams go to their conference tournament and maybe don’t value that, but that’s not us. We’ve always thought you want to go into the NCAA Tournament winning games. So, this is March. The whole idea of must-win, it’s real. But we talked about this way back from the summer when we put this team together.”

On3’s Dan Morrison contributed to this report.