SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TIPOFF MEDIA DAYS

October 13, 2026

Chris Beard

Ole Miss Rebels

Men's Media Day Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Chris Beard has been the head coach of four Division I programs and won big at every stop in his coaching career. He led Texas Tech to its first-ever national championship game in 2019 and was named the AP National Coach of the Year. In 2025 he led Ole Miss to a Sweet 16 for only the second time in program history.

Chris credits his high school coach, Terry Priest, for steering him towards coaching. His bond with Coach Priest lasted long after Chris graduated from high school. In fact, Chris was even asked to deliver the eulogy at Coach Priest's funeral in 2020. Chris's coaching journey started as a student manager in college. That included ten years as an assistant coach under the legendary Bobby Knight at Texas Tech, followed by head coaching jobs and junior college, Division III and Division II.

If you have spent any time with Chris, you know that he is very proud of the coaching profession, proud to be a part of the coaching profession. He believes in paying it forward to future coaches.

Off the court Chris is very proud of his three daughters, and he should be. Avery is in law school at NYU. Ella is a medical student at the University of South Florida, and Margo is a sophomore in college in the SEC.

Please welcome Chris Beard.

CHRIS BEARD: Need to hang around Garth more, man. Feel better about myself after this intro.

Always an exciting day. Kind of the start of college basketball in a lot of ways. We got a lot of optimism in Oxford right now.

Our team, much like most other teams in college basketball, kind of a melting pot. Three returners, two of those guys played major minutes and had some individual success in the SEC last year with Ilias and Patton. Three freshmen that have really impacted our program, kind of fearless guys, competitive guys. Of course, nine newcomers.

In those nine newcomers, we stay committed to the build of Ole Miss basketball, so we have some sophomores in there that are in my mind kind of freshmen because they got four years of eligibility left.

We had a good summer in Oxford. Seven weeks of practice. We took advantage of an NCAA rule that allowed us to take an international trip. An international rule that was kind of based on common sense, which we hadn't seen much of lately, but changing that rule to let us go take a trip every year makes a lot of sense. I never understood the once every four.

We went to Puerto Rico with our team. Kind of a dual-tasked trip. We got 80 minutes of good basketball, against some good Puerto Rican pros and we were able to spend some time off the court after much banging each other's summer.

Expectations are high in Oxford. People ask me from time to time, it's like a really cool time to be at Ole Miss. I think timing is everything in life. With what our football team is doing, what our women's basketball team has sustained, baseball team back in Omaha, Olympic sports win at a high level. We embrace the responsibility to build a competitive basketball program at Ole Miss. So we're excited of this year's opportunity. Excited to be in the SEC.

I tell the players almost on a daily basis, this is what you signed up for. When all you guys chose to play basketball at a young age, you want to do play against the best. I know my illustrious career was no different. I vividly remember the Saturdays at Complands Park or the Thursday nights at Northwest Rec, and you were always excited at night if the best players were there and the gym was filled. On the nights where the best players weren't there, you don't have any stories or memories from those days.

So this league allows you to have a story, a memory every time you take the floor. We're proud to be in the SEC at Ole Miss. We're looking forward to this season's opportunity and challenge.

Any questions?

Q. First, my high school coach played for Bob Knight at Indiana in 1976, Rich Valavicius. I know the first time I remember seeing you was on Knight School on ESPN when you were an assistant for him at Tech. I think he's one of the top three coaches maybe to ever walk the planet, but I wanted to get kind of your memories and how he influenced your style, especially defensively, and then the second part, what went into the decision to play Alabama in an exhibition game when you have them on the schedule already?

CHRIS BEARD: Yeah, first of all, with Coach Knight, Knight School, I hadn't heard that one in a while. To my knowledge, that was one of the first reality TV shows. So I could talk for a long time about that whole experience. Is that still on TV?

Q. (Off microphone).

CHRIS BEARD: I told my three daughters about it, and they didn't understand. They were, like, you were on The Real World? No, it wasn't quite like that.

No, I learned a lot from Coach Knight. It's like getting a Ph.D. in coaching every single day. Obviously the tactic on the floor, the motion offense, the commitment to defense. I think what I learned most from Coach Knight was probably the idea of preparation. I had been a head coach before my time with Pat and Coach. I think our teams played hard. I think we recruited well, but I don't think at a young age that I really understood the idea of preparing to win. Winning a choice.

I've even apologized to some of the players on those junior college teams years later. I wish I would have known then what I know now, but learned a lot of things from Coach Knight. Preparation was probably at the top of the list.

The Alabama game on Thursday brings a unique opportunity. To my knowledge, it's the first, at least in modern history, SEC-SEC exhibition game.

First thing I'd like to do is thank Nate. He didn't have to think of us first. When we think about exhibition games, it's very simple what we're looking for. We're looking for great competition. We're looking to put our teams in tough situations. We're looking for things to be revealed about our team. So this game is obviously going to give all those objectives as well as a chance to play what I think will be a true road game.

The logistics, we have to do better. I literally just thought about it this morning. We're on a plane flying to Birmingham, and then I'm going home to practice and then I'm bussing back. If Nate gives us this opportunity or maybe Steven next year, we'll do a better job with our travel.

But should be a great basketball experience for both teams. We're going to learn a lot about our team Thursday night.

Q. You guys obviously have Pinkins coming back and Ilias coming back, but with so many new guys coming in from the portal, what's the biggest challenge of getting a team full of portal guys ready with the guys that are already there?

CHRIS BEARD: Yeah, it's a fair question that we all get, especially in today's modern college basketball. To me personally, I know no different. When you build a junior college team, team changes every year. Sometimes you even add players at semester. Division II and small college is very similar.

Many examples our build at Little Rock was based on a completely new team. Our build at Texas Tech, we took advantage of the grad transfer rule and added Matt and Tariq that year.

Me personally, I know no different. If I ever had the chance to coach a team where everybody returned, it would be like an out-of-body experience for me. Maybe one day.

I think the way we've always kind of described it with our staffs and then ultimately with our players is that we're fighting time. That's our biggest challenge when you put together a team with new players and so how do we combat that, what's our plan? It's to try to get a lot done each day. So instead of just having a lunch that's grab and go, maybe we have that lunch where everybody puts their cell phones in the golden bucket, and we invest 30 minutes with just some conversation at lunch.

Maybe instead of ending practice after that hour and 50 mark, we go eight more minutes, just going over something one more time. But we're fighting time, so we try to max out each week in the hours we have. That's always been the first compass on how we put teams together with a bunch of new players is. We recognize that we don't have a lot of time here, so we better take advantage of every minute we have.

Q. We could have done this at Funky's, man.

CHRIS BEARD: Probably should have done this at Funky's.

Q. I know you probably don't care what media thinks, but is it a motivating thing when you are picked 13th in a 16-team league? Is that something you can use to provide fuel for players?

CHRIS BEARD: I do care what media thinks, if it's media that I respect and know. So I value a lot of opinions, especially in this room today.

Absolutely it's motivation. In our program we don't have a lot of bumper stickers, koozies. We don't have a lot of slogans, but we do have a few that we believe in. One of them is "never lose your chip." We're always trying to find motivation.

We've been on the other side of the coin a few times over the years where maybe somebody picks you to win a league. We use that as fuel as well. So it doesn't really matter where you are in the rankings. There's an opportunity to find fuel, F-U-E-L.

I think every great competitor that I've ever studied, known, met with, learned from, it always comes up early on. One example would be when I had a chance to spend some time with Coach Saban after our Monday night team. I tried to get in there for years just to spend 20 minutes with him. When that opportunity finally kind of presented itself through Brett and Jimmy and those guys, you would think that maybe that wouldn't come up in a Coach Saban talk, but just in brief conversation with him, you could tell he was a highly motivated guy.

Whether you're on the top of the mountain or the bottom of the mountain looking up, before the games begin, that's why we play the games, you got to find that fuel. So for us this season in Oxford we don't have to look far. A lot of you in this room aren't expecting much from Ole Miss, but that's why we play the games. So we'll see. We got a good team. We've got the right returners. We've got veterans. We've got experience. We got young guys that have brought an energy into our program.

We got a good coaching staff, and I'm not talking about myself. I think one of the stories that nobody has picked up on yet, but it will be told, is we added Petar Aleksic, one of the top-10 basketball coaches in the world. For us to get out of our comfort zone a little bit and hire a standing European head coach, one of the best players that ever came from Bosnia, one of the best players that ever coached in the world, to have him on our staff, it's kind of a sneaky story in college basketball.

We got to win some games, and we got to make the story worthy of being told, but that's one example of some things we're doing at Ole Miss that are kind of outside-the-box thinking.

No, having a chip on our shoulder and having some motivation going into each season is a big part of it. I don't shy away from that.

Where did you pick us?

Q. (Off microphone).

CHRIS BEARD: I wish there was. Yeah, I wish there was. 2021, guys get five years because of COVID. 2023 guys get five years because of the new rule. The new rule comes out in a weird time where players have real options and stuff. So I'm not the expert on all that, but just hoping at some point common sense prevails.

A part of common sense would be if a guy signed a pro contract, he's on a pro team, of course, but most of these players, like our two you mentioned Corey and Micah, are not pro players. They're simply looking for the opportunity that the class before them and the class after them got.

So the timing of the NCAA to come out with that rule, it's very perplexing to me.

Q. If I remember in my research correctly last season says was the first time in your Division I career that you had finished under .500. What kind of lessons do you take from a season like that that you feel can be beneficial for you guys going into this new year?

CHRIS BEARD: Yeah, lots of lessons after each season, regardless of what your final win-loss record is. You reflect on things that worked for you, and you make sure you do them again. You reflect on some things that didn't work for you, and you look for solutions. You look for answers.

So obviously a lot of reflection this offseason in Oxford. I would say about last year's team, and I'll say this whenever I have the opportunity, I was really proud of the way we finished the season playing our best basketball. We were a real factor in Nashville in a lot of ways. Just a basket away from a 40-minute opportunity to make the Big Dance again.

So that's kind of what college basketball is, right? Our sport is very unique. You have to get off to a good start. You got to build an NCAA Tournament résumé, but ultimately, if you want to be one of those teams that has a chance to win six games in three weekends, you've got to be playing your best basketball when it matters most.

We accomplished that last year. We just left a lot of unfinished business on the floor throughout the year where we didn't have the résumé to get in, but I would argue at the end of the season we were playing like a Sweet 16-type team.

This year what worked for us late in the year, let's repeat some of those things. Where we did get ourselves in some trouble in the mid part of the season, we're looking for solutions.