TRANSCRIPT: Everything Chris Beard said after Ole Miss’ 62-63 loss to A&M

OXFORD, Miss. — No. 16 Ole Miss men’s basketball lost 62-63 to A&M Wednesday night at the SJB Pavilion in heartbreaking fashion. Chris Beard’s Rebels led the No. 13 Aggies most all of the game before Manny Obaseki hit a three-pointer with 13 seconds to go in the game to give A&M the lead and the win.

The Rebels (15-4, 4-2 SEC) hosted A&M (15-4, 4-2 SEC) in front of the second-largest crowd in the history of the SJB Pavilion, and it appeared they would emerge victorious. Ole Miss led by eight points with 3:49 left in the game — but went from “almost mathematically won,” as Coach Beard described it after the game, to a harsh defeat that left everyone in the arena shocked.

After the game, Coach Beard met with media to discuss the game. Here’s everything he said.

Coach Beard: Obviously a tough one tonight. We’ve got a hurt locker room right now. I thought we did everything we needed to do to win the game. The game’s kind of mathematically over if we can just inbound the ball and make one or two passes and absorb their foul, you know, hit a decent percentage of free throws. So, obviously, too many unforced turnovers in the last three or four minutes of the game, so just disappointing. I think we played well enough to win the game tonight, a lot a lot of really good things in the game.

You know, you think about our program is about ten months ago or so, in season one, we played this same Texas A&M team here on our home floor and we just weren’t competitive in the game. So here we are year two and again I thought we were more than competitive in the game. I thought we deserved to win tonight IF we can finish the game off and we didn’t. So give Texas A&M credit. They did the things they had to do.

You know, if you coach long enough or play long enough, you’re a part of these games on the good side or the bad side. So unfortunately for us tonight, lots of lessons to be learned. Don’t want to take away, though, from the first 37, 36.5 minutes of the game. We put ourselves in a position to beat what I think is one of the best teams in college basketball. We just didn’t finish the game like you have to finish the game.

You know, lastly, I just really appreciate the crowd and the attendance. I just apologize to everybody that came to the game. I know you come to the game wanting to win, and we were so close to getting that done for everybody tonight. But it doesn’t take away the fact that we want to say ‘thank you.’ We really appreciate the crowd. It’s a special night in college basketball, attendance and environment wise. Trust me, nobody feels worse than than we do. We feel like we let a lot of people down tonight. It’s a long season, and we’ll get back to work. Give A&M credit for doing what they had to do in the last couple of minutes to give themselves a chance to win the game.

Question: Coach, obviously a tough league and tough loss, but how does this kind of prepare you for March? Everything is preparing you for March. You mentioned it’s a long season, but how does a loss like that get you ready for SEC tournament? Also the NCAA tournament as well.

Coach Beard: You know, those things are hard to think about right now, obviously, but it’s a long season. There’s 18 SEC games. I guess tonight was number six. So there’s lots of lessons each game, you know, whether you win or lose. And so, back to work tomorrow. You know, we’re a fighter program (with a) fighter mentality. We’re not going to play the victim card. We got nobody to blame but ourselves for this. Again, we had the game almost mathematically won. We’ve just got to be able to inbound the ball, break the press, accept the foul and make some free throws. And we just weren’t able to do that tonight.

So lots of lessons in this game. Ultimately, you hope as the coach, you know, I care for these guys — I’d do anything I could do to personally to help them win — but you just hope that a a painful night like tonight, maybe there’s some silver lining in the end. It’s a long season. If we can learn from this, we can become a better team. Finishing off a game when we have a lead big enough where we should win the game.

Question: Chris, a lot of unforced errors in that last four-minute stretch. How do you approach a veteran-heavy team that kind of made mental mistakes late?

Coach Beard: Just got to stay the course. I’ve always been a coach that trusts players. And so, a lot of those things, you know, we had the right guy with the ball and we just didn’t make the play tonight. So again, nobody hurts more than us. You know, the game is basically mathematically over if we just make some routine plays, but give Texas A&M credit. They were the reason that we couldn’t make some of those routine plays.

Question: You guys had just four free throws tonight. Did you feel like you guys were aggressive in that regard? There were just four free throws tonight. Did you like the aggression in that regard?

Coach Beard: I’m not going to comment on that tonight. You know, I would just say that it’s two physical teams playing. It was really hard to understand and comprehend from where I was sitting that, you know, we played 16, 17 minutes of SEC basketball and there’s only one foul on the opponent. You know, a lot of what they do is ISO ball. One guy has the ball, everybody’s spaced out. So there’s not a lot of nights where you see the foul on the ball, but there’s a lot of action and a lot of physicality going on off the ball, so we’ll have to study the tape and see. You know, these are the best officials in college basketball, period. So it’s never about that, but it was a puzzling stat. You know, the opponent can come in here and play physical and tough. That’s their identity. That’s who they are. Their coach will tell you that more than I can. So no fouls off the ball 17 minutes of an SEC game. That was puzzling, to say the least.

Question: You used the word ‘hurt locker room.’ I guess in the schedule where you’re playing the third of three ranked opponents in a row next game. How long can you allow that hurt to last?

Coach Beard: I mean, you can’t. It’s SEC basketball. You’ve been covering me and us forever. You know, stay the course. We’re not going to let the hurt last.

Question: You guys extended the lead out a little bit late in the in the second half, got it to eight, maybe a little more than that. Then didn’t get a field goal the last 3:50-something. Was there like a common thread to some of those offensive possessions that were fruitless at the end?

Coach Beard: I thought we got some decent shots during that stretch. But I also thought we had way too many late shot clock situations. We certainly weren’t even talking about time at that time. We were actually talking about quite the opposite. Stay aggressive. Their soft press kind of nags at you, so you’re going to be playing with a 20-second shot clock, not 30. But I agree with you. I thought during that stretch we just had too many possessions, like you think about our team, we were in late shot clock more than we have been all season.

Give the opponent some credit. The press kills some shot clock. But I think from our point of view, there’s a lot to learn from this. We can be much more aggressive, call it mid-clock. I did think that was a pivotal part of the game, you know, when you get up 7 or 8, the way I was always taught to think is, can we get this thing to ten? And then if you get it to ten, it puts a little bit more pressure on their offense. They have to play at a different speed. But we were never able to break that threshold, and give Texas A&M credit.

Question: Coach, your defense forced 20 turnovers tonight for Texas A&M. On a kind of positive note, what are you seeing from your guys on the defensive side that has allowed you to continue to force some of the top teams in the country offensively to a lot of turnovers?

Coach Beard: It’s one of the parts of our defensive identity. You know, I do believe that we’re one of the best defensive teams in college basketball as we sit here today. We have to continue to build this. I thought we did do a good job of forcing turnovers. We had some some timely bad fortune or bad plays, whichever way you look at it, we could have turned those turnovers into a few more baskets — especially in the last 4 or 5 minutes of the game.

But no, I think, again, a lot of good things. If college basketball was a 37-minute game, then we’re sitting here celebrating one of our best performances. So I can’t say it any clearer, I thought our guys deserved to win tonight. We played well. We executed a scouting report for about, you know, 37.5, 38 minutes. So just some routine plays you have to make when the game is basically mathematically over. We had veteran players on the floor. We just didn’t get it done.

Question: At the half, the rebounding disparity wasn’t that bad, but then it kind of manifested itself in the second half. It’s back-to-back games where you’ve been outrebounded by more than double figures, but what do you kind of attribute that to, especially in a game like this that was a rock fight?

Coach Beard: Yeah, I attribute that to Texas A&M, the number one offensive rebounding team in college basketball. I thought our guys grew a little bit tonight in the rebounding battle. We fought. We competed. You all saw it. We had some some special performances. But when we needed the rebound the most in some big moments, Texas A&M showed their identity. There they are. The first basket of the game was an offensive rebound for them. And then I thought we did a pretty good job the rest of the first half. And then certainly late in the game, there was just some timely rebounds that we had to have. A lot of those are rotation. We didn’t do a great job defending dribble penetration tonight. So in a lot of those blow bys up top, we’re in rotations much more difficult to get the rebound when you’re in rotations than if we can just guard the ball. So the rebounding stat is always about several things. If you can’t guard the ball you’re in rotations. Difficult to get a rebound.

Next Up

The Rebels hit the road this weekend for a Saturday matchup at No. 22 Missouri (15-4, 4-2 SEC). Tipoff is set for 5 p.m. CT on SEC Network.