Chris Beard sends strong message to Missouri, fans following Saturday night game

It’s been a long and difficult season for the Missouri basketball team and head coach Dennis Gates. That continued on Saturday, with a hard-fought loss to Chris Beard and Ole Miss.

After the game, Beard sent a strong message to Missouri and its fans. In it, he praised the job Gates has done and made it clear that, despite their current record, this is an excellent Tigers team and a well-run program.

“Mizzou is well coached. Period,” Chris Beard said. “A reflection of what kind of organization you have is obviously how you handle success. You see a lot of kind of one-hit wonders in this business. That’s certainly not Missouri.”

Dennis Gates is in his second season as the head coach at Missouri. Last year, the Tigers went 25-10 and made it to the Round of 32 in the NCAA Tournament. This year, Missouri is 8-21 overall and 0-16 in SEC play.

“Unfortunately, we all go through kind of seasons like Missouri is having right now, and you absolutely see a team’s kind of character under tough times,” Beard said. “I’ve watched every game they’ve played and there’s zero quit in this team. So, lot of respect for [the] coaching staff here.”

Chris Beard then singled out one player, in particular, Sean East. In the game against Ole Miss, East put up 27 points and three assists. That’s despite Ole Miss trying to focus on him on the defensive side of the ball during the game.

“And, look, East is one of the best players in college basketball. He’s very, very efficient. Like, there’s a lot of guys who can have a 30-point game, but he does it on 12 shots. He’s just got a poise about him. So, he’s definitely one of the best players in college basketball, and, believe it or not, we had some gameplan focuses around him. Didn’t look like it, but give him all the credit. He’s a dynamic player. So, I think above all, that’s a team that has zero quit, lot of character in that team.”

Admittedly, Chris Beard isn’t running practices or even particularly close to the Missouri coaching staff. Still, from everything he has seen, Missouri is doing things the right way.

“And I’m not in the locker room every day. Coach and I don’t know each other that well. We don’t swap Christmas cards or anything, but I’ve been doing this long enough to know when a team has a culture, and there’ll be brighter days ahead in terms of the win-loss record here at Missouri, no doubt about it. This team’s got a lot of fight. They’ve been in every game,” Beard said.

“You guys have seen it and the free throw line was good to us tonight. We hit just enough to kind of get by. Kind of a tale of two halves. We played really well in the first half. I agree with Matt [Murrell]. In the second half, I thought Missouri was aggressive and caused us a lot of problems.”

Missouri has two more games this season, hosting Auburn and traveling to play LSU on the road.