TRANSCRIPT: Everything head coach Chris Beard said about Ole Miss’ 73-66 road win over Arkansas

FAYETTEVILLE — Ole Miss defeated Arkansas 73-66 Wednesday night at Bud Walton Arena. After the game, Rebels head coach Chris Beard spoke with media. Here’s everything he had to say:

Coach Beard: So, round two of an 18-round fight is the way we set it up for our team. SEC is as good as advertised. So, we played well tonight. Special performance by Malik Dia. Really encouraged by Matt Murrell and Dre Davis, they got in foul trouble in the first half and didn’t really impact the game. In the second half, they played really well, probably one of their better 20-minute segments. We took care of the basketball tonight, which was a focal point. I think Arkansas is as good as any team in the country if you turn it over, take bad shots, or get your shot blocked. So we weren’t perfect in those three areas, but we were focused on it and, uh, did a good job. So, good road win for us. Round two. It’s so early in the league, just trying to stay poised and not get too high or too low. But I’m proud of the players tonight. Team effort.

Media: First, I believe this is the second consecutive game where you’ve held a team that was shooting above 50% to under 40. in this one. And then the second half coming out both of those games, what’s kind of been the the adjustments kind of coming in common between both of those games coming out of the locker room, including this one?

Coach Beard: Yeah. Tonight was another good defensive effort. Uh, certainly wasn’t perfect, but it rarely is. I thought we had a good emphasis on trying to contest drives without fouling. They’re an explosive offensive team. You kind of pick your poison, we let one of their players get going in the first half, but, some of it by design, trying to keep some of the other guys from getting started. So, I don’t think with a team as talented as Arkansas, you’re going to stop everybody. But we had some focal points throughout the game. Did a good job defensively. Second game in a row, we’ve outrebounded our SEC opponent. So that’s a positive. Hopefully that’s an upward trend for us.

Media:Yeah. Chris, uh, about Malik and I guess about the rebounding too. But I want to ask specifically, you know, he picked up that third foul pretty early in the second half. But you stuck with him. You kept him on the floor or you brought him back in the game pretty early. Can you talk about the trust that you that you had in that moment, and how much it seemed to pay off for you in the second half.

Coach Beard: Yeah, I’ve only been coaching Dia for a year, so tonight was a great step in our relationship. The big fella earned some trust tonight, so I thought we did a good job subbing offense for defense. Just trying to survive as long as we could in the second half. So I recognize, you know, John Bowl’s performance in the first half. Big shot block to end the half. We went small ball a little bit. Brakefield  played, courageously, kind of out of position down there banging with the bigs. But, we were able to kind of weather the storm with some foul trouble tonight. But obviously Dia came to play.

Media: Hey, Chris. Uh, Ethan Westerman with the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. You forced Arkansas into a lot of late shot clock situations, kind of, um, especially in the second half, scrambling at the end. How important was that to really bleed that shot clock down?

Coach Beard: Yeah. Such an explosive offensive team. We tried some full court pressure to kind of kill some shot clock, and it was average at average at best. So I think our guys just did a good job, you know, trying to focus on no first-pass drives, second pass drives. It’s easy to sit here and talk about on this zoom, but a lot more difficult to do out there on the court. But, we were trying to extend possessions defensively, no doubt about it.

Media: Yeah. Chris, uh, obviously seeing what we’ve seen in the first week in the SEC with road teams struggling, the ability to pocket this one early, but most of how y’all did it in the second half kind of took command. And what you saw out of your team out of that half time?

Coach Beard: Yeah we just had a lot of poise tonight. We knew the crowd was going to be a factor. And, we kept Arkansas from having too many runs. I think they’re an explosive team that can kind of knock you out and in four-minute segments. And so we had some good possessions on offense and defense when the crowd was kind of getting ready to erupt. I thought it was just team performance. I mean, if you want to win in this league, uh, I’m not a big road and home guy. Let’s just talk about how to win in this league. You got to have some A performances. And again, I already mentioned Matt and Dre stepping up in the second half. Dia obviously had a big game Juju six assists, only one turnover until the the late turnover.  Pedulla controlled it. Just had contributions from everybody. Off the top of my head, I think every every player that played tonight for Ole Miss brought a positive contribution to the game.

Media: Coach, quick question. You talked about the depth of this league. Just talk about how proud you are of the tenacity of your team to go into a place like Bud Walton after that performance at Memphis. And what have you learned from your guys over the last two weeks and how they responded tonight?

Coach Beard: Yeah, we definitely like the Memphis game back. Uh, just not in terms of what the scoreboard said at the end, but just kind of our competitive approach but give Memphis credit. They Played about as well as a team could play that night in my opinion. So, had a chance to respond now through two SEC games. I think we’ve played 80 minutes of competitive basketball. I think our hearts have been in the right place. You know, I thought we were personally attached to this game. My personal time in this state was real. A lot of Little Rock friends, fans, supporters at this game and, you know, we wanted to play well. And, I know Wes being from the state of Arkansas, so, you know, not that it was about me or Wes, but every game should have a personal attachment. Um, but it certainly was an objective for all of us to play well in this state. You know, Coach Sutton’s son came in the locker room before the game. We had Sean on our staff at Texas Tech. Scott Sutton’s a friend of mine. Eddie Sutton, was a mentor, kind of a legend of mine. So a lot of history in this building. And to say that we didn’t try to take advantage of the opportunity would not be accurate. You know, we knew where we were playing. We knew we knew that Arkansas was going to come out and fight after their first game in the SEC that was a little bit disappointing. So again, I’m really proud of our players. It’s not always about the score at the end of the game. It’s just about the approach, the preparation and the competitiveness within the 40-minute game. And I was proud of our guys’ fight tonight.