Bern’s-Eye View: Chris Beard brings journeyman work ethic to UNLV

By Taylor Bern

Tuesday, March 29, 2016 | 2 a.m.

The future of UNLV basketball coached his first career NCAA Tournament game with a broken hand suffered during a particularly fiery halftime speech in the Sun Belt championship game.

The dry erase board he punched won the fight, Arkansas-Little Rock won the game (plus the NCAA Tournament game in an upset over Purdue) and less than a year after accepting his first Division I head coaching job, Chris Beard is bringing his passion to Las Vegas to help pick up another program, broken hand and all. On Sunday evening, Beard agreed to become UNLV’s 12th full-time men’s basketball coach, and while his contract cranks through the Board of Regents’ process there’s a lot to figure out about what a Beard era will look like at UNLV.

First, let’s address the timeline for making Beard officially official. Nevada’s Open Meeting Law requires that written notice of a meeting, like the one the Board of Regents must convene to approve Beard’s contract, must be posted at least three full days before the meeting day.

So, if UNLV President Len Jessup and Athletics Director Tina Kunzer-Murphy present a contract to the board today, the earliest a special meeting could be scheduled is Monday, and it’s possible that the board would want to take more time. The deal is expected to be a five-year contract, according to a source.

Beard was selected over New Mexico State's Marvin Menzies, and the announcement from UNLV came a little more than three full days after Kunzer-Murphy said she found out from social media that Cincinnati's Mick Cronin turned down the Rebels to stay at his alma mater. The contract for Cronin, which might have had a difficult time getting Regent approval, was reportedly north of $2 million while this one will likely be south of $1 million as Beard was making $260,000 at Little Rock.

When former Rebel Dave Rice, who didn’t have previous head-coaching experience, was hired in 2011 he got a three-year deal that basically paid him $450,000 annually, once you counted the completion bonus. Last year, UNR’s Eric Musselman, who had been a head coach in the NBA and semipro but not in college, received a five-year deal worth $400,000 per year, with incentives like an attendance bonus on top of the usual performance kickers.

Rice’s guaranteed money was up to $700,000 per season when he was fired on Jan. 10, and the university still owes him close to $1 million for the remainder of his base salary. The Rebels will also pay Little Rock $200,000 over the next two years for the buyout, and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that Beard’s contract calls for a home-and-home with the school he left for, something Little Rock could decide to pursue or ignore.

The Rebels’ offer to Beard might double Musselman’s guaranteed money, which would be some fun fuel to the fire of the coach up north who’s got a good-looking roster next year and a victory against UNLV already in his back pocket. If nothing else, it will serve as an interesting comparison down the road.

Kunzer-Murphy said a formal news conference to introduce Beard would follow the Board of Regents meeting, which is the opposite of how UNLV planned events to announce football coach Tony Sanchez. Either way, as all of those components keep moving along, there’s an unstable basketball program awaiting its new leader.

Beard can’t completely take over until all of the paperwork is approved, but the guy who turned Little Rock around from 13 victories to 30 is going to do whatever he can to hit the ground running. Because that’s what he’s successfully done in previous one-season head-coaching stops at Fort Scott Community College, Seminole State, McMurry, the ABA’s South Carolina Warriors and a two-year stint at Angelo State that led him to Little Rock.

It’s an eclectic resume, and it’s backed up by 10 years as an assistant at Texas Tech where Beard learned under Bobby Knight before becoming Pat Knight’s associate head coach. Beard’s head-coaching gigs have been brief, yes, but they’ve all been steps up the ladder, and if in a few years down the road Beard is leaping up to another rung it will likely be because this hire was a success.

What would Beard success look like? Four times this season, Little Rock won a game scoring 60 points or less, something UNLV has done four times over the previous five seasons.

The Rebels’ adjusted tempo last season was the 12th-fastest in the country, according to kenpom.com, while the Trojans were the nation’s sixth-slowest team. Beard brought in seven new players, most of them from junior colleges, and implemented a defense-first scheme that often eschewed offensive rebounds to get back in transition.

It’s designed to be tough, it’s often ugly and it’s usually effective. Over junior college, Division II and semipro, Beard’s record as a head coach is 171-50, something he’s been able to accomplish largely through force of personality that persuades players to get on his page.

That was likely part of the message Beard relayed to players in a meeting Monday night. Freshman Stephen Zimmerman Jr. has declared for the NBA Draft and plans to sign with an agent, but everyone else with eligibility remaining still has at least a chance to be on next year’s roster.

That technically includes sophomore forward Dwayne Morgan, who asked for his release and is expected to transfer but hasn’t officially completed the process. Ultimately, each player is going to do whatever they feel is best — sophomore Pat McCaw and freshman Derrick Jones Jr. could explore professional opportunities, for example — but Beard has a chance to convince players that UNLV is still a good option for them.

Or, perhaps Beard will lay out a plan that suggests it would be best for both sides if certain players seek transfers. Every coaching change brings personnel change, whether it’s at the behest of coach, player or both, and Beard’s style is a big contrast to what the current roster came here to play.

The same goes for UNLV assistants Ryan Miller and Stacey Augmon. Miller, who said late Monday that he had not heard from Beard, has other potential suitors, and Augmon must decide what to do after getting passed over for the job he had campaigned for.

One of Beard’s career keys has been to find the overlooked or underappreciated players and effectively implement them in a system that’s not very attractive to McDonald’s All-Americans. Pretty much everyone around the program is OK with a recruiting shift that will eventually stabilize rosters year to year, but will Beard combine his approach with the talent level UNLV has been able to get recently or will he prefer to bypass highly ranked high schoolers in favor of four-year players and junior college guys?

Will Beard’s every-guy personality, which comes with a side of “We’re going to kick your teeth in,” help sell season tickets or must he once again prove himself on the court first?

In a recent interview with CBS Sports Radio’s Jim Rome, Beard said he was hired at Little Rock because the Trojans wanted to do more than just win the news conference, so he’s likely used to the doubt that comes before results. And as long as Beard remains passionate enough to break an extremity while trying to will his team to win, the Rebels should mold to his image.

“Guys like me, man, you get one shot,” he told Rome.

And sometimes when you shoot your shot well enough, you get another one. What can Beard do with it?

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.