What Chris Beard said after No. 22 Ole Miss lost 90-64 at No. 5 Tennessee

Everything Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard said after his previously undefeated and 22nd-ranked Rebels lost 90-64 at No. 5 Tennessee on Saturday at Thompson-Boling Arena:

Opening Statement

“(Want to) congratulate Coach Barnes, Tennessee. Me personally, this is my first SEC game. I was very impressed with the crowd. It’s a great, great basketball venue. Super impressed with everything about this place. So obviously for us, the basketball game, I’ll start by saying this Tennessee team is really good. I don’t know Coach Barnes would agree with this, but I think they’re a Final Four contender. 

“They have experience, size, great point guard play. They have an identity, that’s their defense and rebounding. And offensively, they just have a lot of weapons. They can play a lot of different ways. So really, really impressed with them. You’re literally looking at a team one basket away from beating, what, Kansas and Purdue and we’re sitting here today, they’re probably the No. 1 team in the country. 

“So super impressed with Tennessee. (Want to) congratulate Coach Barnes on a good SEC-opening win — 18-round fight. And they definitely handled us. From our perspective, really the tell of two halves. I think in the first half we let a 3-point shooter get away from us right there at the buzzer. If that doesn’t happen, then I think it’s what, 37-31 at halftime. And we’re holding our own in the rebounding. I think they’re up plus-five or plus-six at half. So I thought we played well in spurts in the first half just with our physical rebounding, our toughness. Against one of the best teams in the country to be down a couple baskets at halftime. There’s a lot of good there. 

“Second half, from our perspective, complete different side of the coin and give Tennessee all the credit. They were more physical than us, more competitive than us. They executed a lot better than we did. Really just kicked us in the second half. You guys saw it. So tale of the two halves. A lot of respect for Tennessee. There’s no doubt about it, in my opinion, that’s one of the best teams in college basketball.”

What makes Tennessee so good defensively

“I think it starts just with Coach (Barnes) and that’s their identity. Coach Barnes teams have always been like that. You’ve got five players playing for Tennessee. And nobody takes a playoff. There’s not a weak link defensively. There might be a guy that maybe is not as quick as athletic as the next guy, but their effort is on point. There are five guys playing team basketball on defense and that’s not just tonight’s game. That’s all season long. They did that in the first 13 games of the season, too. So definitely one of the best defensive teams in college basketball. Great ball pressure from their guards. They have rim protection with their two bigs and they have what we call positionless players that can switch a lot of things. So I was really impressed with the defense.”

Ole Miss using a lineup with both 7-footers in the game in the second half with Tennessee winning on the glass

“Definitely was trying everything I could do. We got kicked today. And it’s not just the players, it’s us too, it’s the coaching staff. It’s the whole organization. You tip your hat when somebody outplays you like that. But certainly we were trying different things. But if you don’t have the physicality and you don’t have just the effort, the competitiveness, it doesn’t matter what you do. Scheme wise, obviously we were getting out-rebounded. We played Moose (Moussa Cisse) and (Jamarion) Sharp together. I think in the first couple minutes of that segment we might’ve rebounded a little bit better. But that wasn’t the tell of this game. (Tennessee was) more competitive, they were more physical and they executed their game plan a lot better than we did in the second half. Again, for the first 19 minutes I thought we went nose to nose, toe to toe was one of the best teams in the country. On a night where the basket wasn’t opened up for us early. But I was really proud of our effort, again, to be down seven or eight points in my mind and be holding our own on the backboards for the first 20 minutes of the game. There’s a lot of positives there in the second half. Not a lot of strategy to talk about. We literally just got whipped. They were tougher. They out coached us. Tip your hat to Tennessee, got one of the best teams in college basketball, in my opinion.”

His comments on Tennessee’s Thompson-Boling Arena, if the crowd noise bothered Ole Miss 

“Oh, no doubt about it. There’s some times in the game where we couldn’t communicate like we normally do through the avenues that we like, which is communication. We were prepared, we had some nonverbals and stuff. But I thought it was a great basketball crowd. They could feel the game. I think they helped the team get in some runs and then obviously kind of pound us early. I thought the crowd really stepped up, but we’re still hanging around 14, 15 points. We’re in the game. There’s a couple of spurts there, where I think the crowd definitely impacted the game.”

What he’s seen from Zakai Zeigler in the two years since Tennessee played at Texas

“A lot of respect for him. The worst thing, by far in in team sport, is when a guy goes down. I don’t wish that for anybody, period. Not just our team, but any team. A lot of respect for him. I know a little bit about his story, his recruitment and how he earned the opportunity to play at Tennessee. And he’s the kind of guy I have a lot of respect for. And to see him not only come back from some adversity, but to be playing really well and I think that’s another asterisk next to the Tennessee team. You’re looking at one of the best teams in the country, but you’ve got Zeigler still trying to get his legs under him. From where I was sitting, he’s back. And I know they got a couple other guys that aren’t playing up to their normal standard, statistically, and that’s just gonna happen because they’re too well coached and they’re too competitive. Those are some grown men over there. We’ve played this team a couple times over the years and that’s one of Coach Barnes’ better teams, in my opinion in early January. 

What Ole Miss takes away from that kind of loss at Tennessee

“It is exactly what we just talked about in our locker room. Nobody can take away 13 straight wins. I think that’s an important thing for any team to string some wins together because ultimately you gotta win six games in three weekends to win on the final Monday night. That’s certainly our goal at Ole Miss. Long ways to get there, obviously. It starts with a clear goal and clear vision. So for our team to have the ability to win some games in a row, I think it’s a positive. Now we’re in SEC play. It all starts over. We’ve got a couple days here to practice and try to get our first SEC game on Wednesday.”