Objectively, it's safe to say that this is the worst team that Chris Beard has ever coached. I'm not sure it's necessarily his worst coaching job, but I don't think he liked this team very much and we didn't get what his other stops have seen in year 1 and the numbers say this team is worse than his team at Little Rock
Little Rock was 235 in KenPom the year before he got there and had been 215+ in 5 of the 6 years before Beard. Beard took basically the same bunch that went 13-18 and took them to 30-5. He didn't do that by bringing in a bunch of transfers. There were one or two, but the core was the same group that wasn't very good the year before. After Beard left, Wes Flanagan went 15-17 and back to 245 in KenPom and that's roughly where they've been ever since.
Texas Tech was 54 in KenPom in Tubby Smith's final year, but actually made the tournament at 19-13. A lot has been said about Beard's first team at Texas Tech and how they went 6-12 in the Big12, but that team finished 41 in KenPom and 18-14 overall. They had wins over KP#7 West Virginia and KP#13 Baylor. That was a good team, they just got on the wrong side of a good Big 12.
The next year, he would go to the Elite 8, then finish 2nd. He was projected as a 10 seed by bracket matrix in the Covid year, but that team was 21 in KenPom. He was a 6 seed in his final year in Lubbock.
On to Texas where he improved the KenPom ranking from 26 in Smart's last year to 15 and a 6 seed. They were heading to being a 2 seed when he was let got at Texas.
This is his ninth year as a head coach and only the 2nd time he's missed the tournament. The team that missed the tournament had metrics favorable to teams that got at-large bids. He also improved the metrics from the previous year in every year 1 (he actually continued that streak with Kermit being 122 in his final season and we will finish 87 this year)
We also finished below our preseason ranking in KenPom which is based on a long-term average and the roster you have coming back. We started the year at 82 and finished at 87
Some positives
He got a lot more out of Murrell and Brakefield than Kermit Davis did.
Murrell shot 43% from 2 and 30% from 3 in Davis' final season. This was way off from the previous year, but even still, he was 47/39 in his sophomore season. Murrell improved to 53% from 2 and 40% from 3 in his senior year. He improved his Offensive rating from 108.6 in the sophomore season and 102.9 in the junior season to 114.4 this year - that's a big improvement.
Brakefield didn't make quite as big of a jump, but his usage went up - it's harder to be more efficient when you have to shoot more often. Brakefield's 2% went down from 66% to 55% and 3% went up from 35% to 36% and he got to the line a good bit more.
TJ Caldwell did play about the same amount of minutes and took a pretty big step. I think that's to be expected of a sophomore season.
I think based on these, you can say that he was a breath of fresh air from the guys who Kermit had beaten down. I also think that you can point to all the close wins early on to his Xs/Os - I think he was just out-coaching some of the guys we were facing and that was enough to swing 4-5 points.
Some negatives around players - I was always impressed with AK's ability to improve a transfers offensive #s. It didn't matter if a guy was transferring in or out, they almost always has their most efficient year under AK. Beard didn't get that out of his transfers.
Flanigan was a 52% shooter from 2 and 33% 3 point shooter in his final year at Auburn. That dipped to 46% and 27% this year. That was on a higher usage and he got to the line more often so his Offensive rating did tick up a bit.
Jaylen Murray did improve his shooting %s and Offensive rating despite the step up in competition, but my opinion is that he became nearly unplayable in the defense Beard was running where the opposing team could get Murray to switch to whoever they wanted him to guard. Even still, he improved from 38/35 to 45/37 and Orating went up from 103.0 to 109.9
Moussa Cisse was a shell of his old self. 2 point shooting dropped from 58% on 158 shots to 57% on 93 shots. His defensive rebounding % dropped from 28.1 to 15.6. He dropped from 7th in the nation in rebounding % to not in the top 500. Block % dropped and fouls/40 minutes went up from 3.6 to 5.2.
Brandon Murray was no where near what we thought we were getting. He played 3/4 of the team's minutes at LSU and Georgetown and took 289 shots for LSU and 348 for Georgetown. I know that he missed a lot of time, but he only took 97 shots for us. His usage rate dropped from 24.5 to 13.8 when he was on the floor. It's such a small number that it's hard to compare shooting %s, but 2% went down to 39% and 3% went up to 36% on 28 shots.
I guess Sharp was about what we expected. CUSA to SEC is a big step up, but he still blocked a lot of shots and rebounded somewhat in-line with what he did before, but rebounds% did drop a bit. Shooting % dropped from 65% to 60%.
We were pretty excited about getting Austin Nunez, but he couldn't get on the floor despite J. Murray's struggles at PG - he only took 20 shots this year, down from 106 at ASU.
I guess you could call Flannigan a hit, but it's not hard to make the case that he went 0-6 on transfers.
I do think that he was impacted from being out of the game for a few months - he didn't have those relationships built, but with that said, it feels like we did pretty well getting who we targeted in the portal last year.
A common thing that I heard was that we just didn't have good enough players and that it will take recruiting to fix the problem. A) it hasn't taken Beard very long to turn things around at his previous stops despite the level of recruiting before and B) this is probably the highest rated group of recruits that have ever been put together at Ole Miss.
Murrell was 41 in the Rivals150
Brakefield was 44 in the Rivals150
Cisse was 14th and a 5 star
Brandon Murray was 73 in the nation
Reggie Buckner was actually 29th in his year and Terrance Henry was 65th, but outside of those 2, the 4 that we had on the roster are the highest rated recruits that we have ever had in the Rivals era. Justin Reed was probably higher, but it's basically 4 of the top 7/8 recruits we've ever had.
With all that said, I'm still a big believer in Beard and I think he will get it rolling. I think it will help to have a full recruiting cycle and get in a team that he "likes" more. I hope that we can build the culture he's looking for with the 11ish new players and we see the results on the floor. Ole Miss being in the tournament is one of the most fun things in my fandom.
Little Rock was 235 in KenPom the year before he got there and had been 215+ in 5 of the 6 years before Beard. Beard took basically the same bunch that went 13-18 and took them to 30-5. He didn't do that by bringing in a bunch of transfers. There were one or two, but the core was the same group that wasn't very good the year before. After Beard left, Wes Flanagan went 15-17 and back to 245 in KenPom and that's roughly where they've been ever since.
Texas Tech was 54 in KenPom in Tubby Smith's final year, but actually made the tournament at 19-13. A lot has been said about Beard's first team at Texas Tech and how they went 6-12 in the Big12, but that team finished 41 in KenPom and 18-14 overall. They had wins over KP#7 West Virginia and KP#13 Baylor. That was a good team, they just got on the wrong side of a good Big 12.
The next year, he would go to the Elite 8, then finish 2nd. He was projected as a 10 seed by bracket matrix in the Covid year, but that team was 21 in KenPom. He was a 6 seed in his final year in Lubbock.
On to Texas where he improved the KenPom ranking from 26 in Smart's last year to 15 and a 6 seed. They were heading to being a 2 seed when he was let got at Texas.
This is his ninth year as a head coach and only the 2nd time he's missed the tournament. The team that missed the tournament had metrics favorable to teams that got at-large bids. He also improved the metrics from the previous year in every year 1 (he actually continued that streak with Kermit being 122 in his final season and we will finish 87 this year)
We also finished below our preseason ranking in KenPom which is based on a long-term average and the roster you have coming back. We started the year at 82 and finished at 87
Some positives
He got a lot more out of Murrell and Brakefield than Kermit Davis did.
Murrell shot 43% from 2 and 30% from 3 in Davis' final season. This was way off from the previous year, but even still, he was 47/39 in his sophomore season. Murrell improved to 53% from 2 and 40% from 3 in his senior year. He improved his Offensive rating from 108.6 in the sophomore season and 102.9 in the junior season to 114.4 this year - that's a big improvement.
Brakefield didn't make quite as big of a jump, but his usage went up - it's harder to be more efficient when you have to shoot more often. Brakefield's 2% went down from 66% to 55% and 3% went up from 35% to 36% and he got to the line a good bit more.
TJ Caldwell did play about the same amount of minutes and took a pretty big step. I think that's to be expected of a sophomore season.
I think based on these, you can say that he was a breath of fresh air from the guys who Kermit had beaten down. I also think that you can point to all the close wins early on to his Xs/Os - I think he was just out-coaching some of the guys we were facing and that was enough to swing 4-5 points.
Some negatives around players - I was always impressed with AK's ability to improve a transfers offensive #s. It didn't matter if a guy was transferring in or out, they almost always has their most efficient year under AK. Beard didn't get that out of his transfers.
Flanigan was a 52% shooter from 2 and 33% 3 point shooter in his final year at Auburn. That dipped to 46% and 27% this year. That was on a higher usage and he got to the line more often so his Offensive rating did tick up a bit.
Jaylen Murray did improve his shooting %s and Offensive rating despite the step up in competition, but my opinion is that he became nearly unplayable in the defense Beard was running where the opposing team could get Murray to switch to whoever they wanted him to guard. Even still, he improved from 38/35 to 45/37 and Orating went up from 103.0 to 109.9
Moussa Cisse was a shell of his old self. 2 point shooting dropped from 58% on 158 shots to 57% on 93 shots. His defensive rebounding % dropped from 28.1 to 15.6. He dropped from 7th in the nation in rebounding % to not in the top 500. Block % dropped and fouls/40 minutes went up from 3.6 to 5.2.
Brandon Murray was no where near what we thought we were getting. He played 3/4 of the team's minutes at LSU and Georgetown and took 289 shots for LSU and 348 for Georgetown. I know that he missed a lot of time, but he only took 97 shots for us. His usage rate dropped from 24.5 to 13.8 when he was on the floor. It's such a small number that it's hard to compare shooting %s, but 2% went down to 39% and 3% went up to 36% on 28 shots.
I guess Sharp was about what we expected. CUSA to SEC is a big step up, but he still blocked a lot of shots and rebounded somewhat in-line with what he did before, but rebounds% did drop a bit. Shooting % dropped from 65% to 60%.
We were pretty excited about getting Austin Nunez, but he couldn't get on the floor despite J. Murray's struggles at PG - he only took 20 shots this year, down from 106 at ASU.
I guess you could call Flannigan a hit, but it's not hard to make the case that he went 0-6 on transfers.
I do think that he was impacted from being out of the game for a few months - he didn't have those relationships built, but with that said, it feels like we did pretty well getting who we targeted in the portal last year.
A common thing that I heard was that we just didn't have good enough players and that it will take recruiting to fix the problem. A) it hasn't taken Beard very long to turn things around at his previous stops despite the level of recruiting before and B) this is probably the highest rated group of recruits that have ever been put together at Ole Miss.
Murrell was 41 in the Rivals150
Brakefield was 44 in the Rivals150
Cisse was 14th and a 5 star
Brandon Murray was 73 in the nation
Reggie Buckner was actually 29th in his year and Terrance Henry was 65th, but outside of those 2, the 4 that we had on the roster are the highest rated recruits that we have ever had in the Rivals era. Justin Reed was probably higher, but it's basically 4 of the top 7/8 recruits we've ever had.
With all that said, I'm still a big believer in Beard and I think he will get it rolling. I think it will help to have a full recruiting cycle and get in a team that he "likes" more. I hope that we can build the culture he's looking for with the 11ish new players and we see the results on the floor. Ole Miss being in the tournament is one of the most fun things in my fandom.
