Ole Miss Basketball: Chris Beard beginning to make staff additions

Catching you up on the latest Ole Miss Basketball news: Men’s head coach Chris Beard is putting together his staff and adding some former assistants.

New Ole Miss men’s head basketball coach Chris Beard is beginning to put his stamp on the program. After adding his first player via the transfer portal this week, Georgetown guard Brandon Murray, Beard is now making some additions to the Ole Miss coaching staff.

The additions will include some familiar faces for Beard. His first hire was Wes Flanigan who served on Chris Beard’s staff previously when Beard was the head coach at Little Rock.

Flanigan is coming to Oxford from Auburn where he has served as an assistant on head coach Bruce Pearl’s staff for the last five years. Before he made his way to Auburn he served as the head coach of the Little Rock Trojans after serving as an assistant for Beard.

This won’t be Flanigan’s first coaching stop in the state of Mississippi. He began his coaching career at Northwest Mississippi Community College serving as an assistant coach for four years prior to joining Beard at Little Rock and has also coached at Mississippi State, Nebraska, and UAB.

Along with Wes Flanigan, Texas strength and conditioning coach John Reilly has left the Longhorns and is expected to reunite with Beard at Ole Miss.

Reilly served on Beard’s staff as the head strength and conditioning coach for the men’s basketball program for five years at Texas Tech. He then followed Beard to Texas where he has been for the previous two seasons.

Even after the firing of Beard, this past season under interim head coach Rodney Terry, Reilly helped the Longhorns to a 29-9 record and an Elite 8 appearance before their season eventually ended against Miami.

We’ll see if Beard’s plan to bring in his former assistants pays off in the form of turning the Ole Miss basketball program into a contender in the SEC.