The Flagship: Chris Beard hasn’t just rebuilt Ole Miss basketball. He’s already reinvented it.
Ben Garrett and Zach Berry of OMSpirit.com come together for an all-new edition of The Flagship on a Victory Saturday for Ole Miss basketball to instantly weigh in on the Rebels’ thrilling, 80-77 win over rival Memphis.
Ole Miss, now 7-0, could find itself ranked in the Top 25 next week. The Rebels received votes on Monday, while Ole Miss and Memphis both entered the day as projected NCAA Tournament teams, according to Andy Katz of NCAA.com.
What a turnaround it’s been already under first-year head coach Chris Beard. Beard’s looking to make Ole Miss the fourth separate program he’s led to the NCAA Tournament since 2016. The Rebels have been just nine times in their 100-plus-year history.
“You’re not going to win them all, but what you can do is not lose,” Beard said afterwards. Three Ole Miss players (Jaylen Murray, Matthew Murrell and Allen Flanigan) finished with double-digit points.
Murray, an off-season transfer addition from Saint Peter’s, had a team-leading 22 in a career-best effort.
Murray added nine assists, four rebounds, two blocks and a steal.
Beard added, “You either win the game or run out of time. Today, we did that. I would feel the same way if the last play didn’t go our way today. I thought we competed against, in my opinion, one of the most talented teams in college basketball. We’ll see if my prediction’s right. Pretty confident about it; Memphis is good.
“We took some punches, we threw some punches and gave ourselves a chance to win down the stretch. That’s what the story of our season will be. We’ve got a long ways to go. We’ve just got to validate this with the next game we play.”
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