Chris Beard sends message to Ole Miss players following first loss of season

The undefeated start for No. 22 Ole Miss came to an end on Saturday with a 26-point loss in Knoxville. However, Chris Beard doesn’t want their first blemish to take anything away from their impressive start to the year.

Beard spoke about the message to his team after their first defeat in his postgame press conference following the 90-64 loss to No. 5 Tennessee. While they were obviously disappointed to finally have one in the loss column, Beard says their start was more than noteworthy, especially considering they proved that they could put together a significant amount of victories together.

“It’s exactly what we just talked about in our locker room. Nobody can take away that 13 straight wins,” said Beard. “I think that’s an important thing for any team – to string some wins together. Ultimately, you’ve got to win six games in three weekends to win on the final Monday night. That’s certainly our goal at Ole Miss. A long ways to get there, obviously. But it starts with a clear goal, a clear vision.”

“So, for our team to have the ability to win, win some games in a row? I think it’s a positive,” said Beard.

Ole Miss got off to one of the best starts in the history of their program with their non-conference finish. They opened at 13-0 for their best beginning to a year since ’07-’08 when they also, ironically enough, suffered their first loss in their conference opener against a Top-10 Volunteer team inside Thompson-Boling Arena.

While it wasn’t the stoutest schedule, victories are victories and the Rebels remained unbeaten for as long as all but one team in the nation.

Now, with the start of league play, Beard is ready to reset and start from scratch. It’s a whole new part of their season as they look to get back on the board and start a new streak against Florida this upcoming week.

“Now we’re in SEC play. It all starts over,” Beard said. “We’re 0-1. A couple days here to practice then try to win our first SEC game on Wednesday.”

Beard after season’s first loss at Tennessee: ‘‘We got kicked today’

For the second time in program history, Ole Miss won each of its first 13 games to open a season. Then it all came to a crashing halt at No. 5 Tennessee on Saturday.

The No. 22-ranked Rebels — in their toughest test to date to open SEC play — were humbled, 90-64, by the Volunteers. Tennessee has now won nine of the last 11 in the series.

“Definitely was trying everything I could do,” Beard said. “We got kicked today. It’s not just the players; it’s us, too. It’s the coaching staff (and) the whole organization. You tip your hat when someone outplays you like that. 

“Certainly we were trying different things. But if you don’t have the physicality and effort and competitiveness? It doesn’t matter what you do scheme-wise,” continued Beard. “Obviously we were getting outrebounded and played Moussa (Cisse) and (Jamarion) Sharp together. In the first couple of minutes of that segment, we might have rebounded a little bit better. But that wasn’t the tell of this game. They were more competitive, they were more physical, and they executed their game plan a lot better than we did in the second half.”

“The first 19 minutes? I thought we went nose-to-nose (and) toe-to-toe with one of the best teams in the country on a night where the basket wasn’t opening up for us early,” Beard said. “I was proud of our effort. To be down seven or eight and holding our own on the backboard for the first 20 minutes of the game? There’s a lot of positives there. Second half? Not a lot of strategy to take about. We got whipped.”