Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard looks ahead to Rebels’ Saturday matchup vs. Memphis
OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard met with the media on Thursday and discussed the upcoming matchup against Memphis on Saturday.
“A lot of respect for Penny (Hardaway),” Beard said of the Tigers’ head coach. “One of the best basketball players to play college basketball and in the NBA. A really good coach. I have a lot of respect for him.”
Beard’s respect for Hardaway was evident as he discussed Memphis’ coach who is in his sixth season with the Tigers.
“In my opinion, (Penny Hardaway) is one of the best coaches in our game,” Beard said. “Why do I think that? His teams have identities, he’s a great recruiter. He’s shown the ability at Memphis, when players change, the identity stays the same and this team is no different,” Beard explained.
“I’d argue that when they’re playing the way that I’m sure the way they want to play, they’re as good as anybody in college basketball. That’s been proven this early season… Their team is a work-in-progress, and ours is too, but he (Hardaway) definitely has the pieces at guard play, interior play with a defensive identity. Offensively, they’re just really hard to guard. They have some of the best one-on-one players in college basketball and have real speed at their point guard position… We’ll have to play our best 40 minutes of the season to this point to have success in this game.”
Chris Beard on Memphis
Memphis rolls into Oxford with an overall record of 5-1 with wins over Missouri, Michigan and Arkansas. The Tigers’ lone loss was to Villanova in the Bahamas.
“I have a lot of respect for that program and the coaches that came before Penny,” Beard said. “I guess it is a rivalry with Ole Miss because of the location and the two cities.”
Prior to tipoff on Tuesday against N.C. State, the Rebels got the welcomed news from the NCAA that cleared Oklahoma State transfer Moussa Cisse to be eligible to play.
“I think any time in sports when you are playing a team sport you have additions and subtractions to the rosters,” Beard said. “Some are temporary some are half-to-half. This will be a team objective to get Moussa back in the fold in terms of what he can do to help the team on both ends of the floor,” he added.
“Basketball wise it starts with him being a really good player,” Beard said of Cisse.
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“Basketball is about talent, having players and depth as the season goes on. It (his return) helps our team add another really good player. Defensively, Moussa has done some really great stuff in college basketball. We want him to expand on that. We think there are some things he can do in our system that he has not had the opportunity in other systems. That’s not being negative on the past two schools…. On the offense, he works extremely hard and we believe he can play facing the basket and back to the basket.“
Chris Beard on Moussa Cisse
Home-court advantage
The matchup against Memphis is almost a sell-out, and Coach Beard commented on the importance of having a sold-out arena as well as making sure the seats are filled even when fans aren’t able to use their tickets.
“We believe there’s a relationship in college basketball between home-court advantage and winning. Certainly with a home-court advantage, you need attendance, a student body,” Beard said.
“We don’t have an issue here selling tickets. We have a great percentage of our arena sold, but there’s a little bit of a challenge, with an opportunity to figure this out, a lot of nights season-ticket holder seats aren’t filled. I understand that a lot of our loyal fanbase, donors don’t live in Oxford, no different than many other fanbases. Even for the people in Oxford, it’s still hard to go to 17-18 home games through a season with family, church, business. We just have to really encourage our season-ticket holders on nights they can’t come to the game, take the time and effort to make sure someone is sitting in your seat. If we can do that, problem solved. We can quickly turn this into the one of the best home courts in college basketball quickly,” Beard noted.
Game info
Ole Miss and Memphis tipoff on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. and the game can be seen on ESPN2.
Adam Brown
Adam Brown joins The Rebel Walk as the Managing Editor after being on the Ole Miss beat as a Sports Editor for over 11 years. He is a lifelong Oxford resident. Brown graduated from the University of Mississippi with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.
Prior to The Rebel Walk, Brown was the sports editor of HottyToddy.com covering every Ole Miss sport and local high school sports in the community.
