The calendar flipped, on the stroke of midnight, from December 2023 to January 2024 and formally put one other 12 months within the books. It is onerous to think about any school basketball coach had a stranger 12 months than Chris Beard.
Permit me to recap.
On the fifth day of 2023, Texas fired Beard following a home incident with a lady who was his fiancee on the time. Similar to that, his dream job at his alma mater was gone. Similar to that, his teaching future was unsure. However then, lower than 10 weeks after he was terminated, Beard was employed at Ole Miss. And on the ultimate day of 2023, on Sunday afternoon inside The Pavilion in Oxford, the 50-year-old former CBS Sports activities Nationwide Coach of the Yr guided the Rebels to a 95-78 victory over Bryant that improved Ole Miss to 13-0, which implies that in the identical 12 months that Beard was fired by a Huge 12 faculty, he now has a SEC faculty as one of many solely three undefeated groups left within the sport. The others are Houston and James Madison.
Additionally price noting: Ole Miss has already received extra video games this season than it did all of final season within the remaining 12 months underneath Kermit Davis. The Rebels have completed it by matching the most effective begin in program historical past.
“If we’ll do the issues that we need to get completed right here, and why we got here to Oxford, there’s going to be plenty of data that must be approached and damaged over time — and over the subsequent months and weeks,” mentioned Beard, whose Rebels are No. 15 in Monday morning’s up to date CBS Sports activities Prime 25 And 1 each day school basketball rankings
I’ve Ole Miss within the high 15 of the Prime 25 And 1 largely as a result of I consider that in a season the place UConn, Duke, Arizona, Kentucky, FAU, and Creighton have all already misplaced to sub-70 groups at KenPom.com, there’s merely one thing to be mentioned for simply by no means dropping to anyone (even when the resume is gentle on huge wins). Sure, the Rebels personal an 80-77 victory over Memphis that is a sure resume-builder. However they have not crushed one other top-70 group at KenPom.com up to now this season, and that truth mixed with their subpar laptop numbers — Ole Miss is No. 59 within the NET, No. 64 at BartTorvik.com and No. 79 at KenPom.com — are among the many causes some skeptics stay.
I get it.
Nevertheless it ought to be famous that Beard’s teaching profession is stuffed with examples of him exceeding expectations, typically in a short time. He led Little Rock to a school-record 30 victories in his first and solely season within the Solar Belt, then guided Texas Tech to its first journey to the Elite Eight in simply his second season within the Huge 12 earlier than additionally teaching the Pink Raiders to their first journey to the Closing 4 and nationwide title sport a 12 months later.
In different phrases, it ought to solely be stunning that Chris Beard is already overachieving at Ole Miss in the event you neglect that that is Chris Beard we’re speaking about. Historical past reveals that is precisely the form of stuff he is able to doing, and it will be fascinating to see if he can maintain it going because the Rebels put together to open the SEC portion of their schedule on Saturday at Tennessee.