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Chris Beard - Impressed (hire him now)

Rebel1986

Rebel1986

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Feb 25, 2011
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If you look at his short career, you can see how well he has done and how quickly he can turn things around, and it looks impressive to me. He is the type of coach that could turn UNLV around in one season.

Murray State coach for the 2012-2013 season It is a little hard to tell how he did at the school since he pretty much kept the program at the same level, but the next season the team dropped to 12-15 after they finished 19-9 during his one season.

Prior to Beard Angelo State 2010-2011 11-15
Prior to Beard Angelo State 2011-2012 11-17
Prior to Beard Angelo State 2012-2013 7-19
Beard as coach Angelo State 2013-2014 19-9
Beard as coach Angelo State 2014-2015 28-6

There is no question at all that he did a massive turn around of Angelo State in one year and had them near the top at there level within 2 years.

Prior to Beard Arkansas Little Rock 2009-2010 8-22
Prior to Beard Arkansas Little Rock 2010-2011 19-17
Prior to Beard Arkansas Little Rock 2011-2012 15-16
Prior to Beard Arkansas Little Rock 2012-2013 17-15
Prior to Beard Arkansas Little Rock 2013-2014 15-17
Prior to Beard Arkansas Little Rock 2014-2015 13-18
Beard as coach Arkansas Little Rock 2014-2015 30-5

This is a program that normally wins half of there games historically, and has not won more than 23 games in the last 30 years that suddenly had a massive improvement in only one year. The only thing that changed was the coach. They beat Purdue in the big dance and fell to Iowa State in the next round because he just didn't have the athletes to compete.

I think he is a gamble that is worth taken a chance on. Short career as a coach but very impressive and quickly turning around two programs.
 
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Your taking an awful risk Lord Vader...

But like the other candidates, I wouldn't argue with this hire either. Go for it!
 
I rather have Lavin but this sounds better than Menzies.

Hate that Beard has never sustained any success anywhere for longer than 2 seasons. Not sure he's anymore likely to succeed here than Augmon.
 
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Thx for doing the quick research on Beard. He doesn't have a whole lot of years as a HC but where ever he's gone he's turned losers into winners...big winners at that. I'd be very happy taking a gamble on Beard if we can't get a slam dunk coach(which doesn't appear remotely possible).

He would have been watching college basketball like a madman during Tark's awesome run. Here's hoping he's a Rebel fan.
 
Mjs_702 said:
I rather have Lavin but this sounds better than Menzies.

Hate that Beard has never sustained any success anywhere for longer than 2 seasons. Not sure he's anymore likely to succeed here than Augmon.
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The way you say makes it sound like he can't win for more than 2 season.
 
There is a no reason to think he can't.

He turned teams around into winners so fast, I doubt whatever did it doesn't work in years 2-3-4 as well.
 
He's not proven. That's my reason. It's a good one. You don't know if he can or can't either.

I hope he can because we're likely going to end up with him.

Is he a good recruiter? I have no idea about that either. I suppose there's no reason to believe he can't... Great.
 
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Also fair to note he's got about 20 more division 1 wins under his belt than Todd Simon.

Its a gamble any way you slice it. Maybe it's the best gamble we've got.

Sorry so negative. This search has been miserable and frankly embarrassing.
 
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A first season is far less likely to be a fluke, IMO. He comes in with guys that aren't his, into a team and program that went 13-18 the previous season. In a first season nearly everything is stacked against a coach. That makes what he's done even more impressive. It's not like he had a situation like Wyomings last year where they'd been coached up for four years ready to make a big run.
 
He has one season of D1 coaching experience, in the Sun Belt.

Two years ago he was coaching at a school I've never heard of, in a league I've never heard of. (I don't follow D2 hoops)

He's never coached a single player longer than 2 seasons, anywhere.

I have no idea what kind of recruiter he is because he's never had time to establish himself anywhere.

Without verifying, I'm guessing he's never won with a team consisting of primarily his own recruited players. Hard to imagine how he could have.

He's never faced remotely the amount of scrutiny and pressure to win as he'll face here.

Other than those small unknowns I'm perfectly comfortable. Let's hire him. Great search Tina. You've had since January, and here we are.
 
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In his only job at a comparable size university to UNLV Chris Beard was a 10 year assistant (ultimately associate HC) at Texas Tech.

The Red Raiders won 20 games only once during his last five years there. If I recall correctly those teams were terrible. In 08-09 (as an associate HC) his team went 14-19.

If you ask me that's not his fault, that was Bobby and Pat Knight's fault. But if you're somebody who thinks Augmon holds some degree of blame for the disappointments of Dave Rice's 5 seasons, hard to see why you wouldn't have the same opinion of Beard's tenure as an associate HC at Texas Tech.
 
Mjs_702 said:
Dave Rice.
Click to expand...

Lon's last year 24-9
Rice First year 26-9

Before Beard 13-18
Beard first season 30-5

WAY different situation here. Not saying theirs not risk, but I would say Dave had an amazing first season here. Some great things happened that year, but also some tough stuff down the stretch.
 
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rebel323 said:
Lon's last year 24-9
Rice First year 26-9

Before Beard 13-18
Beard first season 30-5

WAY different situation here. Not saying theirs not risk, but I would say Dave had an amazing first season here. Some great things happened that year, but also some tough stuff down the stretch.
Click to expand...

The point I was trying to make was that a coach's first year isn't a good sample size, if for no other reason than its coaching with someone else's roster.

Don't get me wrong, it's impressive that Beard took a bad Sun Belt team and made them great in one season. Hats off. Can't do it any better than he did it I suppose.
 
Mjs_702 said:
The point I was trying to make was that a coach's first year isn't a good sample size, if for no other reason than its coaching with someone else's roster.

Don't get me wrong, it's impressive that Beard took a bad Sun Belt team and made them great in one season. Hats off. Can't do it any better than he did it I suppose.
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Think about it though. Realistically we expect coaches to do worse with the previous coaches guys than their own unless it's a situation where the previous guys had great talent and the new coach fails to land on par players. The reality is, Beard inherited guys that were not playing at a high level and he turned them into a great team. Of course nothing is certain, but I would suspect he does better with his own guys and I don't think that's far fetched at all.
 
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Willden4UNLV said:
Don't even go there. Lon left a team that could coach itself. Beard stepped into a team that went 13-18 the season before.
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You know what else Chris took over? A team retuning it's top 8 mpg players from the year prior.

That make any difference? Or nah?
 
Willden4UNLV said:
Think about it though. Realistically we expect coaches to do worse with the previous coaches guys than their own unless it's a situation where the previous guys had great talent and the new coach fails to land on par players. The reality is, Beard inherited guys that were not playing at a high level and he turned them into a great team. Of course nothing is certain, but I would suspect he does better with his own guys and I don't think that's far fetched at all.
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I think the success a coach has in year one is largely dependent upon what he inherits.

You say Beard enherited garbage, but in actuality he inherited a young team who all retuned. His 30 win squad had I believe a total of 3 Frosh on the entire roster. All Juniors and Seniors.

Of course Beard gets credit for getting them to play, but it doesn't hurt to return 8 upperclassmen who averaged 30+ minutes as underclassmen the year prior.
 
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Mjs_702 said:
You know what else Chris took over? A team retuning it's top 8 mpg players from the year prior.

That make any difference? Or nah?
Click to expand...

At the level in which they won last year? That does not happen unless you have a pretty amazing coach.
 
That team had never won anything before so while having that many experienced players helped, he is the more likely cause of an increase that large in victories over the previous coach's 12 year average in his time there.
 
All coaches start somewhere and without experience so who really knows but I guess we will find out soon
 
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Slick Mick said:
At the level in which they won last year? That does not happen unless you have a pretty amazing coach.
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Ok, what would have been par improvement for a 13 win Sun Belt team returning 8 upperclassmen who averaged 30+ minutes per game the year before? 23, 24 wins?

Yes, Beard did a great job coaching someone else's players this year. An amazing job. He overachieved by any measure.

Too bad he likely won't bring back 8 upperclassmen at UNLV. He'll have to recruit his players. Can he? I don't know that either. Doesnt seem like he's ever had to.
 
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Ok, I stand SOMEWHAT corrected on the returning players point. They were deep with experienced upperclassmen but i misread the basketball reference roster apparently. This is accurate.

"Little Rock enters the 2015-16 season with a new head coach, Chris Beard, and four returning letterwinners that will be joined by nine newcomers. Senior Roger Woods (11.9 ppg, 6.5 rpg) is the team’s lone returning starter joined by letterwinners senior Josh Hagins (12.1 ppg, 52 steals), junior Maurius Hill (6.1 ppg, 4.4 rpg) and junior Mareik Isom (6.8 ppg, 45.0 3FG%)."

The team was picked 4th in the preseason conference poll with a first year coach, so it isn't like everyone thought they were going to suck.

http://sunbeltsports.org/news/2015/10/20/MBB_1020152510.aspx
 
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Mjs_702 said:
You know what else Chris took over? A team retuning it's top 8 mpg players from the year prior.

That make any difference? Or nah?
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That's the point, though. The same team was a loser before Beard and an NCAA round of 32 team with wins over Purdue and at SDSU with Beard.
 
This guy could be good, he's definitely gonna need recruiting help but he's young, hungry and knows how to win. I agree it's a gamble and not the big splash hire everyone was looking for but I'd rather have him than Menzies, no question about it.
 
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We all wanted Brad Underwood with pretty much a Carbon copy resume, and Underwood took over a program in much better shape than UALR... comes in, dominates league, wins a tourney game... lucky for us, there isnt a high demand this year for him right away, still unknown, but hes got all the right upsides...
 
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