Chris Beard wasn’t UNLV’s first choice, but he might be the best choice

By Ray Brewer (contact)

Monday, March 28, 2016 | 12:45 p.m.

Chris Beard wasn’t at the top of any list — yours, mine or UNLV’s — to become the Rebels’ next basketball coach. Officials wanted to make a splash and hire someone more notable. They were even willing to shell out a few million dollars a year to do so.

Instead, all the big-name coaches were scooped up, and scooped up quickly, by more established schools with better situations. When you fire a coach three games into league play, others in the coaching fraternity take notice and stay away, making the 43-year-old Beard from Arkansas-Little Rock the best of the rest.

His contract is expected to be for five seasons. Financial terms weren't immediately known.

Don’t be confused: It’s not a bad hire, and all signs point to Beard developing into one of the nation’s up-and-coming young coaches. Still, he's someone the casual fan isn’t familiar with, and that’s a problem for UNLV.

He’s not a sexy pick — at least not yet. And because he won’t get the fan base excited and because UNLV hasn’t been as aggressive in recent seasons marketing the program, Beard will face an uphill battle getting supporters to buy in. He’s not going to fill those empty seats at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Like some of you, I didn’t know of Beard until late last week through an Internet search when he emerged as a candidate. He had a great run this season at Arkansas-Little Rock, leading it to 30 wins, the Sun Belt regular season and tournament championship and an upset of Purdue in the NCAA Tournament. That win busted my bracket, too.

The good news is Beard sports a 171-50 all-time record as a head coach. The bad news is most of those wins came at the junior college (44) or Division II ranks (66) and a 31-4 season coaching in the professional American Basketball Association. More bad news: He’s got one year as a Division I head coach and this is his fifth job since 2011.

While it would be easy to label Beard as a one-hit wonder who took advantage of a great season at Arkansas-Little Rock to land a better job, that wouldn’t be accurate. It also wouldn’t be fair, especially when considering that one season was the best in school history and Beard out-coached Purdue’s Matt Painter in the tournament victory. You have to do something right to win 30 games.

He might not be the coach UNLV backers hoped for during the long and agonizing search. But after having three months to speculate and react to the lows of the process, it would have been easy for most to find faults with any hire.

The possibilities teased us, but when push came to shove, UNLV couldn’t entice someone more seasoned. Jamie Dixon went to TCU and Brad Underwood to Oklahoma State. Rick Pitino was never going to happen and was a bad fit. Mick Cronin, thankfully, used UNLV for leverage with Cincinnati — dodged a bullet there, UNLV. Stacey Augmon received a token interview.

What’s lost in the debate is one simple fact: Beard has always found ways to win. He has earned the opportunity to tackle a more marquee job. Sure, none of those jobs were as high-profile as UNLV, but then again, the Mountain West has morphed into a one-bid league with more run-of-the-mill teams than quality programs.

Beard is smart enough to realize he can’t start from scratch at UNLV. There are too many good players in the program, or committed to join the program, for Beard not to retain Ryan Miller as an assistant coach. While officials were conducting the coaching search, Miller was busy recruiting and staying in contact with committed players. On Twitter, those players still still seemed interested in UNLV.

Getting UNLV supporters to stay interested in UNLV is another challenge. There’s one way for Beard, like others before him, to gain support — win. In Las Vegas, we always have, and always will, support winners.

If Chris Beard wins, he’ll go down as a sexy hire.

Ray Brewer can be reached at 702-990-2662 or [email protected]. Follow Ray on Twitter at twitter.com/raybrewer21