Chris Beard got about six minutes in front of the microphones Thursday, five days before UAB comes to the Pavilion. He spent the longest stretch of it not on his own team at all, but on the man coaching the other one.
Andy Kennedy is bringing UAB to Oxford on Tuesday night. Beard wants Ole Miss to treat it as more than a tune-up.
“I think we should honor the all-time winningest coach that ever played here. A.K.’s time at Ole Miss was real. I mean, you look back at a lot of the records today, some of those teams would have been a 3, 4 seed in the NCAA tournament. It was a little bit different SEC in those days. It was a 2-3 bid league sometimes.”
Then he went further than a coach usually goes on somebody else’s behalf.
“If you look at the quality of competition that A.K. coached and the records and the seasons he produced, I would honor he’s worthy of being in this school’s Hall of Fame. It’s not my decision. I only have one opinion in a group that makes those decisions. But in my opinion, we should honor the all-time winningest coach in this school’s history.”
“There’s a reason why we have the good job that we have today”
Beard framed it as a program habit, not a favor between friends. He asked the room to take the friendship out of it, then explained the habit.
“When we take a new job over, we try to embrace the past. There’s a reason why we have the good job that we have today here. It’s those that came before us.”
He has already done it once. The Tad Pad game honored Rod Barnes, Rob Evans and Bob Weltlich, and Beard said his original plan was to have Kennedy back for that one too. They missed it by a couple of months. Tuesday works anyway, he said, because Kennedy was the first coach to ever work a game in the Pavilion.
“He’s an ambassador to Oxford. When he went on TV after leaving coaching here, only positive things about Ole Miss. Now that he’s at UAB, same thing. So I think there’s so many reasons that A.K. should be honored. Tuesday night’s just the start.”
And then the line that turns a gesture into an argument about the whole program: “I think we have a lot of tradition here at Ole Miss basketball. I think we could do a better job telling our own story.”
The 10-turnover night
The basketball half of the session was about what last week in Birmingham actually taught him. Beard scheduled the exhibition against Alabama on purpose — a veteran roster full of new faces, two of the best teams in the country booked before the opener, one behind closed doors and one on national television.
“Did it get the guys’ attention? I think so. I think it felt a little bit different than maybe some years where you just play a closed door. Game is on national television. We’re playing an SEC opponent.”
He would do it again, he said — “hopefully in Oxford from time to time.” Here is the tension he built himself: Beard said Ole Miss did not approach Alabama like a game. It still came away with a clear list.
“From a positive standpoint, a 10-turnover game was a positive. We want to take care of the ball. We got to rebound better, obviously. So that game again exposed a lot of things. Some things that we did well, let’s build on it. Was it real? Is this who we really are?”
Rebounding came up twice in six minutes. It came up in both player availabilities too.
UAB is the answer to the “was it real” question. Beard said the rotation is tightening and Tuesday will be treated more like a real game than either of the first two — with one caveat. “We still have some clear-cut objectives on playing some guys some minutes that they deserve.”
Stephenson, Handlogten, and the calendar
The last question was the one everybody in the program is asking. Beard answered it the only way he can: by the calendar.
“The situation I think we all find ourselves in, we have a game on Tuesday. Who is eligible to play right now? And is there a court case in between now and when we play that might impact that? So with Corey specifically, that’s some information I’m actually looking for today. When is the next court date for Corey? If the next court date is after when we play UAB, then Corey will play against UAB.”
Corey Stephenson is one of the Class of 2022 plaintiffs in Glancey v. NCAA. Reports this week said a California injunction in that case extends those players’ eligibility through the 2026-27 season, and that the NCAA intends to appeal. That is why Beard is watching for the next court date rather than celebrating.
Micah Handlogten, the fifth-year big man in from Florida, is on a separate track. “Micah’s case is a little bit different,” Beard said, “waiting on the next court date and some things like that.”
So the honest answer, five days out: Ole Miss knows who it wants to honor Tuesday. It does not yet know for sure who it gets to play.