Chris Beard discusses how he got Ole Miss players to buy in

Ole Miss coach Chris Beard knows it takes quite a bit to make sure all of the players buy into a program. From the ground up, Beard wants to work on every single player.

If you can explain the vision early on, the easier the buy in is for the younger player. That’s why Beard wants to emphasize high school recruiting to get the guys he wants to coach.

So far, his vision, program and the buy in from players worked through a 15-1 start.

“It starts with recruiting,” Beard said. “You kinda recruit the guy that you want to coach. I’ve always had the utmost respect for high school coaches because for the most part, those guys can’t control who they coach. We can. We go out and recruit the players on our team. So we start with that, you know, will this guy be bought into what we’re trying to do? Will he understand our expectations? 

“Will he understand how we hold guys accountable to it for us? It starts in the recruiting process, trying to get the right guys that we think want to play team basketball that we think want to win, want to be a part of something special.”

It takes a bit to get the chemistry going. For Beard, nothing’s instant. But when the players can gel, then the winning comes in bunches.

“Then once you get the guys here, I mean you know as well as I do a lot goes into team chemistry and stuff and these guys have really fought to become a team,” Beard said. “We got a long ways to go. Just getting started here in SEC play. But these guys that care about each other and we do have a culture that’s developed. I don’t know if it’s completely built yet we’re working on it on a daily basis but the players are bought into what we’re trying to get done. 

Ole Miss was blown out by Tennessee 90-64, the only loss of the year and it dropped the Rebels from the top 25. However, two SEC wins in a row got them back on track.

“I’d say the same thing when the scoreboard isn’t in our favor, even in some of our disappointing moments,” Beard said. “We were connected, you know, it might’ve not looked like that at Tennessee, but you know, we didn’t beat ourselves that night. We just got beat by a better opponent in that 40 minute game.”