What Chris Beard said after Ole Miss stunned Alabama in the SEC Tournament

BY Taylor Hodges

Ole Miss is still playing in Nashville, and Chris Beard believes his team is finally starting to look the way he imagined when the season began.

After the Rebels’ upset win over No. 15 Alabama in the SEC Tournament, Beard spoke with reporters about the game plan that worked against one of the nation’s most explosive offenses, why he doesn’t buy the “tired legs” narrative in March, and the late-game poise his team is starting to show.

Here’s everything Beard said after the win.

Opening statement…

We’ll start with an opening statement from Coach Beard and then take questions for the players first. First, we wish Alabama good luck in the NCAA Tournament next week. Really good team, explosive offense and really talented players — including, in my opinion, an NBA first-round draft pick. They’re really a problem to defend.

Give our guys a lot of credit. We just beat a really quality opponent that I think has a chance to make the Final Four this year. So I wish Nate and those guys the best. For us, when we out-rebound the opponent this season, we’ve had a lot of success. That was a big focal point in the game plan, and we got it done. Alabama is so hard to guard. We kind of went back and forth between a “no threes” defense and protecting the paint. I thought the coaching staff did a really good job. Wes Flanagan had a great scout. Everybody contributed to this game. Our players believed. Every four-minute timeout we made small adjustments to how we were going to play.

We had four guys in double figures tonight, which is kind of our formula. And another low-turnover game. The stat sheet says nine, but two of those came in the last few possessions. For most of the game we were around six or seven turnovers, which is where it needs to be for us to have success in this tournament. We’ve kind of set this up as our second four-team tournament here in Nashville. Tomorrow we’ll have a chance to win the championship in that four-team tournament.

Beard on defending Alabama’s tempo…

The best we could. They’re a lot to handle when they start coming downhill with that kind of abandon. Everyone talks about their three-point shooting — and that’s definitely part of their identity — but from my perspective their ability to get downhill, get into the paint and get to the free-throw line is just as dangerous. On the last possession we rolled the dice a little bit protecting the rim. If you stay fully committed to guarding the three-point line, they’re just too explosive. They’re really hard to defend.

On rest and recovery between games…

I’ll tell you what we told our team this morning. I saw a couple guys yawning at breakfast, and that’s not going to work. This narrative about being tired after playing 80 minutes — I just don’t believe in that. These players aren’t 30 years old. They grew up playing AAU tournaments with three games in a day. They played pickup basketball seven days a week for hours growing up. So we made it clear: no excuses. We weren’t buying into the “three games in three days” narrative. It’s basketball. Depth is something we have, and we were prepared to play as many guys as we needed tonight.

On what’s working for Ole Miss…

I think you’re finally seeing the vision for our team. We’re out-rebounding opponents, taking care of the ball, getting balanced scoring, executing late in the shot clock. We’re doing a lot of good things. I know some of you haven’t followed our season closely beyond the win-loss record. I get that — it hasn’t been easy to look at. But we’ve played some good basketball. We can play with anybody in this league.

When we played Alabama earlier in Oxford it was basically tied at halftime and a one-possession game with about 10 minutes left. They hit us with a haymaker late and the final score didn’t really reflect the game. Right now we’re playing good basketball and our guys believe. They’re preparing the right way. We had players this morning watching film from yesterday’s game getting ready for tonight. I’m really happy for them. They deserve the credit. They’ve refused to quit.

On team’s improved communication late in games…

Communication has been one of our challenges this year. Player-led teams are the only way to win in March. That’s something you build toward in November, December and January, and we didn’t always get it done. That’s not all on the players. At times it hasn’t been our best coaching job either. But right now our communication is better. I thought we used our timeouts well tonight. It was a little scary not having one late, but that was a coaching decision because we wanted to get a good look on that out-of-bounds play. Travis Perry did a great job as the inbounder breaking their press. Nobody was hiding tonight. And we made just enough free throws to win.

On Kamardine’s play late against Alabama…

Ilias is a really good player. When you talk about great players, they have a lot in their bag. It’s about understanding time, score, matchups and what the team needs in that moment. Tonight he had four assists and only one turnover and obviously scored the ball. Ole Miss can win if he has eight points and 10 assists. Sometimes we need 17 points from him. One thing I’ll never forget from tonight: Alabama put their big on him and dared him to shoot. He got a wide-open three and missed it. The next time down, he had the courage to take the same shot again. That’s basketball. You take the right shot and trust the percentages. A lesser player might have turned that one down. So I have a lot of respect for Ilias for having the courage to take it.

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