Chris Beard Seeking More ‘Consistency’ From Ole Miss Basketball in Late-Season Run

The Ole Miss Rebels have been idle this week after suffering an 81-71 loss to the Mississippi State Bulldogs last Saturday, and there are a few things that head coach Chris Beard is looking for from his team in the final stretch of the regular season.

After the loss to State, guard Sean Pedulla stated that he didn’t believe the Rebels had been playing their best basketball since the second half of their win over Kentucky, despite winning three games in a row prior to facing off against the Bulldogs. Beard agreed, but he elaborated some on that point on Wednesday.

“I think when you say something like that, understand we won two road games against teams that really were playing kind of fearless, call it ‘nothing to lose,'” Beard said. “After that game at LSU and South Carolina, those are good wins, period. There’s no asterisk next to it because somebody’s record is or isn’t what people think it should be.

“But I think what Sean was referring to was the consistency of the game. You’ve got 10 four-minute games, and the last several games, there’s a couple of those four-minute games we want back. I think the last game, we had a 13-4 run and a 17-4 run in those games. You take out those runs, cut them in half, maybe the scoreboard looks different.”

Picking up road wins in the SEC is always a good thing for a program, but it’s clear the Rebels have some areas they want to improve before these final regular season games. This week of practice has been a solid effort to that end, but it will take establishing this progress on the floor in an actual game to make a difference.

“I would say it’s consistency of the 40 minutes, trying to create our own runs ourselves where we can get a couple kills on defense, maybe the basket opens up for us a little bit, get a timely offensive rebound, make some free throws,” Beard said. “Then on defense, get multiple stops, cause some turnovers.

“I’m not saying we’ve been playing bad basketball, but it’s not our consistent basketball that we need to be successful in this league.”

Ole Miss is hoping to get back on track in the win column on Saturday before it faces some nationally-ranked tests in the games ahead. The Rebels travel to Vanderbilt this weekend before traveling to No. 1 Auburn, hosting Oklahoma and No. 6 Tennessee, and traveling to No. 2 Florida.

Tip-off on Saturday against Vanderbilt is set for 2:30 p.m. CT on SEC Network.