Everything Chris Beard said after Ole Miss’ stunning loss to Texas A&M

No. 16 Ole Miss basketball led by eight points with four minutes left at home against No. 13 Texas A&M. 

The Rebels uncharacteristically fell apart to suffer their second straight SEC loss since their first Top 5 road win in program history at No. 4 Alabama last week.

Manny Obaseki drained a 3 with 13 seconds left. Ole Miss had multiple shots on goal in the final seconds, but came up empty. The Rebels went the final 3:49 without making a shot to fall to 15-4 (4-2 SEC). They next travel to No. 22 Missouri on Saturday. 

Three of Ole Miss’ losses have been by a combined six points. The second-largest crowd in program history (10,008) showed up for Texas A&M, including the largest student crowd in SJB Pavilion history. 

Here’s everything second-year Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard had to say afterwards. 

OPENING STATEMENT

Beard: Obviously a tough one tonight. We’ve got a hurt locker room right now. Thought we did everything we needed to do to win the game. Game’s kind of mathematically over if we can just inbound the ball and make one or two passes and absorb their foul. 

Hit a decent percentage of free throws, so obviously too many unforced turnovers in the last three or four minutes of the game. Just disappointing. I think we played well enough to win the game tonight. 

A lot of really good things in the game. Think about where our program was about 10 months ago or so in Season 1 when we played this same Texas A&M here on our home floor and we just weren’t competitive. Here were are in Year 2 and, again, I thought we were more than competitive in the game. I thought we deserved to win tonight if we can finish the game off. We didn’t, so give Texas A&M credit. They did the things they had to do. 

If you coach long enough or play long enough you’re a part of these games on the good side or the bad side.

Unfortunately for us tonight, you know, lots of lessons to be learned. Don’t want to take away though from the first 37, 36 and a half minutes of the game. We put ourselves in a position to beat what I think is one of the best teams in college basketball. We just didn’t finish the game like you have to. 

I just really appreciate the crowd and the attendance. Just apologize to everybody that came to the game. I know you come to the game wanting to win and we were so close to getting that done for everybody tonight. But it doesn’t take away from the fact we want to say thank you. We really appreciate the crowd. It’s a special night in college basketball attendance and environment-wise. Trust me, nobody feels worse than we do. We feel like we let a lot of people down. 

It’s a long season and we’ll get back to work. Give A&M credit for doing what they had to do in the last couple minutes to give themselves a chance to win the game.

ON THE MARCH-LIKE FEEL OF THE GAME

Beard: Those things are hard to think about right now, obviously. But it’s a long season; there’s 18 SEC games. I guess tonight was No. 6. There’s lots of lessons each game whether you win or lose. So, you know, back to work tomorrow. We’re a fighter program with a fighter mentality. We’re not going to play the victim card. We had nobody to blame but ourselves for this. We had the game almost mathematically won. We’ve just got to be able to inbound the ball, break a press and accept the foul and make some free throws. We just weren’t able to do that tonight. 

Lots of lessons in this game. I care for these guys. I’d do anything I could to personally help them win. But you just hope that a painful night like tonight … maybe there’s a silver lining in the end. It’s a long season. If we can learn from this we can become a better team finishing off a game when we have a lead big enough where we should win the game. 

ON UNFORCED ERRORS IN THE LAST FOUR MINUTES

Beard: Just got to stay the course. I’ve always been a coach that trusts players. A lot of those things we had the right guy with the ball and we just didn’t make the play tonight. Nobody hurts more than us. The game is basically mathematically over if we just make some routine plays. Give Texas A&M credit. They were the reason we couldn’t make some of those routine plays.

ON OLE MISS SHOOTING JUST FOUR FREE THROWS 

Beard: I’m not going to comment on that tonight. I would just say that it was two physical teams playing. It was really hard to understand and comprehend from where I was sitting that we play 16, 17 minutes of SEC basketball and there’s only one foul on the opponent. 

A lot of what they do is ISO ball — one guy has the ball and everybody’s spaced out. There’s not a lot of nights where you see the foul on the ball. But there’s a lot of action and a lot of physicality going on off the ball.

We’ll have to study the tape and see. These are the best officials in college basketball, period, so it’s never about that. But it was a puzzling stat. Opponent can come in here and play physically and tough — that’s their identity, that’s who they are. Their coach will tell you that more than I can.

No fouls off the ball 17 minutes of an SEC game was puzzling, to say the least.

ON PLAYING FOUR STRAIGHT RANKED OPPONENTS

Beard: Stay the course. We’re not going to let the hurt last. 

ON COMMON THREADS TO SOME OF THE LATE-GAME OFFENSIVE POSSESSIONS

Beard: I thought we got some decent shots during that stretch, but I also thought we had way too many late-shot-clock situations. We certainly weren’t even talking about time at that time; we were actually talking about quite the opposite. Stay aggressive. 

Their soft press kind of nags at you, so you’re going to be playing with a 20-second shot clock, not 30. But I thought during that stretch we just had too many possessions where we were in late shot clock more than we have been all season. Give the opponent some credit; the press kills some shot clock. But from our point of view there’s a lot to learn from this. We can be much more aggressive mid-clock. I did think that was a pivotal part of the game. 

When you get up seven or eight the way I was always taught to think is, ‘Can we get this thing to 10?’ And then if you get it to 10, it puts a little more pressure on their offense. They have to play at a different speed. But we were never able to break that threshold. Give Texas A&M credit. 

ON FORCING 20 A&M TURNOVERS

Beard: That’s one of the parts of our defensive identity. I do believe we’re one of the best defensive teams in college basketball as we sit here today. We have to continue to build this. 

I thought we did a good job forcing turnovers. We had some timely bad fortune or bad plays. We could have turned those turnovers into a few more baskets, especially in the last four or five minutes of the game. 

A lot of good things. If college basketball was a 37-minute game we’re sitting here celebrating one of our best performances. I can’t say it any clearer, I thought our guys deserved to win tonight. We played well. We executed the scouting report for about 37 and a half, 38 minutes. There’s just some routine plays you have to make when the game is basically mathematically over. We had veteran players on then floor, we just didn’t get it done.

ON BACK-TO-BACK GAMES BEING OUT-REBOUDED

Beard: I attribute that to Texas A&M being the No. 1 offensive rebounding team in college basketball. I thought our guys grew a little bit tonight in the rebounding battle. We fought, we competed. Y’all saw it. We had some special performances, but when we needed the rebound the most in some big moments Texas A&M showed their identity. First basket of the game was an offensive rebound for them. 

We did a pretty good job the rest of the first half. Certainly late in the game there was just some timely rebounds we had to have. A lot of those are rotation. We didn’t do a great job defending dribble-penetration tonight, so a lot of those blow-bys up top were in rotations. Much more difficult to get the rebound when you’re in rotations than if we can just guard the ball. 

The rebounding stat is always about several things. If you can’t guard the ball, you’re in rotations, difficult to get a rebound.