Nobody knows the truth.
Perhaps CBS’s Tim Doyle and Chris Beard are great friends. Perhaps Doyle, who referred to the Rebels as “frauds,” is giving the Ole Miss head coach and his players the motivation they need. Who knows? What we do know is after knocking off Iowa State to clinch a spot in the Sweet 16, Beard pulled a Ryan Day and wanted to know where Doyle was now.
Around fall, he’ll be on a plane to Oxford, Mississippi.
“There’s always two sides to those things,” Beard told Infinity Sports Network host Zach Gelb. “The talk around the tournament and the talk around basketball is fun. Those guys are paid to have an opinion. That’s why my favorite TV show is Kenny [Smith], Chuck [Barkley] and Shaq and those guys, because they tell you what they think. Whether you agree or disagree, it makes for live television. It’s awesome. Those guys aren’t scared to tell you what they think. They’re truth-tellers. That’s why it’s my favorite TV show. Always has been, and always will be.
“Back to us, we have a saying: ‘Never lose your chip.’ Anybody who’s talking about you, whether they’re talking good or bad, it is good, because people don’t talk about people aren’t [relevant]. So, for people to have critical things to say about us, I don’t know, they’re talking about Ole Miss. For people to have some positive things to say about us, thank you. I think we’ve earned the right to have some positive, as well. But that’s fuel. All the great competitors know how to find their fuel.”
“That’s one of the fun things about the NCAA Tournament: we don’t spend a lot of time — or really much time at all — talking about those,” Beard continued. “But the whole ‘fraud’ deal, that did reach our locker room. And we’ve enjoyed competing through that. If we don’t do our part of the bargain, and if we don’t make it to the Sweet 16, then maybe that’s valid. But, I think at this point, to be one of the 16 teams left in college basketball, I think you can say a lot of things about our team like you can other teams, but I don’t think you can say Ole Miss Basketball is a fraud.”
Eat your heart out, Tim Doyle.
“Look at the 16 teams left still in the tournament,” Beard added. “And look at the teams that we’ve beat. I think the best thing in sports is head-to-head. When there’s a tie-breaker for a championship, everyone goes to the head-to-head. There’s nothing more important in all the analytics and all this stuff than head-to-head competition. And we’ve beaten a lot of teams that are in the Sweet 16, and that’s one of the sources of our confidence internally. We believe that we’re worthy and deserving of being in the Sweet 16. And we believe that if we play our A-game we can be successful. Just like we know, if we don’t play our A-game, it’ll be ‘Start the band. Start the bus. We’re out.'”
The only thing that matters is what happens on the court — and right now, Ole Miss is proving they belong in the Sweet 16.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.