Ole Miss basketball coach Chris Beard agree to new contract

Wed, Mar 13, 2024
NCAAB News (AP)

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) - Mississippi coach Chris Beard has agreed to a new contract amid a debut season when he won his first 13 games.

Keith Carter, the Ole Miss vice chancellor for intercollegiate athletics, announced the new deal on Wednesday, the one-year anniversary of Beard's hiring. The school did not release details of the contract.

Beard received a four-year deal with the Rebels and was scheduled to make $3.35 million next season. State law limits contracts to a maximum of four years.

The 10th-seeded Rebels are 20-11 entering the Southeastern Conference Tournament, their first 20-win season in five years. They'll face No. 7 seed Texas A&M on Thursday night in Nashville, Tennessee.

"We are just getting started," Beard said in a statement.

Ole Miss matched the program record with a 13-0 start and entered SEC play with a No. 19 ranking. The Rebels finished 7-11 in regular-season league games.

"The future of Ole Miss Basketball could not be brighter under Coach Beard's leadership," Carter said in a statement. "His impact on every facet of our program was immediately apparent, and it has translated to a new standard of success and a culture that is building every day.

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"He has galvanized Rebel Nation, and particularly our student body, and created a newfound passion for men's basketball that is felt throughout the entire Ole Miss community."

Beard is a four-time conference coach of the year and was AP's national coach of the year in 2019.

His two-year tenure at alma mater Texas ended abruptly in January 2023 following a domestic violence arrest. Felony domestic charges were ultimately dismissed and a prosecutor said his office determined that the charge of assault by strangulation/suffocation-family violence could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Beard was arrested when his fiancee, Randi Trew, called 911 and told officers that Beard strangled, bit and hit her during a confrontation in his home. She later said that Beard didn't choke her, and was defending himself, and that she never intended for Beard to be arrested and prosecuted.

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