Everything Chris Beard said after Ole Miss’ fourth double-digit comeback of the year

No. 25 Ole Miss on Saturday avoided the first ugly mark on its NCAA Tournament resume with a thrilling comeback at LSU. 

The Rebels haven’t reached the ‘Big Dance’ since 2019. Actually, they’ve put together just two winning seasons and one above-.500 finish in the SEC in the last five years. 

They were comfortably projected in prior to tipoff in Red Stick. Ole Miss, which has just nine all-time NCAA Tournament berths, was slotted as a 5-seed in the latest bracketology from ESPN’s Joe Lunardi. 

The Rebels moved a step closer to a protected, Top 4 seed with the 72-70 win, capped by a last-second tip-in from Dre Davis with 0.1 seconds left. Ole Miss trailed by 11 with just under three minutes to play but closed on a 15-2 run. Davis scored a season-high 22 points, including 14 in the second half.

Here’s everything second-year Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard had to say in his postgame press conference.

Must-See Highlights: Ole Miss pulls off legendary comeback in Red Stick

OPENING STATEMENT

Beard: Got a lot of respect for LSU basketball and the coach (Matt McMahon). They gave us all we could handle tonight. Obviously all the way to the buzzer. I thought they were the most aggressive team for most of the game. Really hard to guard tonight. Couldn’t get a stop for most of the game. We knew we had to really take care of the ball and try to just score with them for a while. I think the difference in the game was we only had one turnover in the second half and five for the game. That gave our offense a chance to kind of have our defense’s back when we were struggling late in the game. 

I thought our guys showed a lot of poise just giving ourselves a chance. Obviously had some fortune during that time, but just proud of the win on a night when we didn’t play our best. To get an SEC road win speaks a lot about our team. Make sure the narrative isn’t we didn’t play our best for any other reason than LSU. They were aggressive. Thought they played defensively a little bit different than they have to this point in the season. There’s a lot of changes out there. Took us a long time to adjust. I wish coach and the team the best of luck here down the stretch. 

ON LSU’S PHYSICALITY

Beard: They were really getting in passing lanes in the first half defensively. I don’t want to speak for coach, but it felt like they were playing a little bit different than they have in the past. It took us some time to adjust.

ON THE 11-POINT DEFICIT

Beard: We call that ‘play it to the bone’ in our program. We tell the guys at the start of the season you’re going to have to win a couple of courageous, late-game comebacks to have the kind of season you want to have. When you’re in these positions you just want to give yourself a chance every night. Internally I thought our guys had a lot of poise. Thought we used our timeouts well and just kind of stayed on the same page of exactly what we were trying to do. Down nine with about two minutes left is not really time to look up at the scoreboard. It’s just try to make sure all five players are on the same page possession by possession with exactly what we’re trying to do. 

Gave some double and triple assignments during that time ‘cause we didn’t have another timeout. So we’re talking about what we want to get done on defense and then what we want to get done on offense and then maybe the next defensive possession. Can’t do that with a lot of teams, but we’re experienced. We’ve got older guys, so I thought the guys did a good job kind of digesting the information that we were trying to get done in winning time. 

ON THE FINAL PLAY

Beard: We just always talk about, ‘We have two chances here.’ We can win the game with a shot or we can win the game with the offensive rebound. We also spend a lot of time talking about time. You don’t want to shoot it too early, especially against LSU with their talented guards that can get off really good one-on-one shots.

ON FOUR SECOND-HALF FOULS FOR LSU’S DAIMION COLLINS

Beard: He’s a super player. I’ve been coaching a while, and he’s as athletic as any guy I can remember coaching or coaching against. He can just do things other guys can’t do. We did have an aggressive game plan. We didn’t want to fear his shot-blocking, but you’ve got to play with some intelligence, too. He’s a guy that can really alter the game with his length and athleticism. He’s a really good player.