AUSTIN, Texas — Chris Beard has something to get off his chest.
As the new Texas head coach walks into a mid-October practice, his players already seated in chairs in front of a large television screen, Beard addresses the questions about whether his team dominated by talented transfers will avoid chemistry issues this season.
“That’s the narrative,” Beard tells his team. “Are you guys tired of it? Because I’m tired of it.”
He then turns on a 90-second clip of Austin Rivers from last May, after the Denver Nuggets guard was asked about a potentially bigger role in the NBA playoffs because of injuries.
“No matter where they play me, when they play me, start, don’t start, here, there — every minute I’m in there, I’m just going to be playing hard as hell,” Rivers said. “You wanna be this, you wanna be that guy, I was that guy in high school. I wanted to be an All-Star. I still feel like I’m good enough to be that. But that’s not my role here.”
The lesson from Beard to his team was clear — everybody needs to get comfortable with playing a different role from last season — and it wasn’t the first time he’s given it.
In his first three months at Texas, Beard brought in arguably the best transfer class in the portal era, adding six of the 30 best transfers and a top-30 recruit to a roster that returned four players from a Big 12 tournament champion and 3-seed in the NCAA tournament.
But none of those players is likely to play the same role they did last season or produce the same numbers they did last season, and that’s led to questions about whether it can work.
“It’s natural,” guard Marcus Carr said. “We’re a first-year team, guys haven’t played together before. They’re going to have doubts about chemistry and stuff. But not everybody gets to see our practices.”
So Beard has been trying to get his message across to his players all offseason, with the Rivers video the latest attempt — and it seems to be working.
“Everybody wants to win a national championship around here,” forward Christian Bishop said. “That’s the main thing. Everybody can’t do their same averages as last year, but we’re all willing to sacrifice in order to win.”
WHEN BEARD LEFT Texas Tech for Texas following Shaka Smart’s departure for Marquette in early April, he knew he was taking over a roster in flux. Matt Coleman and Jericho Sims were seniors and done playing college basketball, Kai Jones and Greg Brown were expected to leave for the NBA draft, and several role players from last season were likely to enter the transfer portal.
As Beard has stated throughout his coaching career, whether at Angelo State, Little Rock or Texas Tech, he’s not one to enter his first year thinking it’s going to be a rebuilding season.
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Seth Greenberg breaks down why Chris Beard left Texas Tech to be Texas’ next coach.
He always wants to win immediately, and in this case he needed to overhaul the roster. But Beard said his historic raid on the portal was not necessarily by design.
“It was never like, I called [associate head coach Rodney Terry] night one and said, ‘Let’s go get seven transfers,'” Beard said. “But I did call RT night one and said, ‘Let’s go get seven guys that can play.'”
Beard and his staff of heavy hitters — he persuaded Terry and another sitting head coach, Chris Ogden, to leave UTEP and UT-Arlington, respectively, and join his staff, brought Ulric Maligi with him from Texas Tech and then hired highly regarded assistant Jerrance Howard from Kansas — went to work. They explored the 2021 high school class, but taking an available senior out of desperation — aside from Jaylon Tyson, who followed Beard from Tech to Texas — could create positional or scholarship issues when it came to recruiting the 2022 and 2023 classes. They looked at junior college transfers and international prospects, but no one jumped out immediately.
So into the transfer portal Beard and his staff went.
It started with Utah transfer Timmy Allen and Kentucky transfer Devin Askew committing on April 13, then Creighton transfer Christian Bishop following on April 16. Ten days later, Vanderbilt transfer Dylan Disu joined the fold. At this point, the Longhorns had risen into the top 15 of most early preseason rankings, and it looked like Beard had enough talent on his roster to win games in March.
But he wasn’t done.
Up next was UMass transfer Tre Mitchell, who had an ever-changing recruitment until picking Texas in mid-June. And then the one that put Texas over the top and into the national championship discussion: Minnesota transfer Marcus Carr, the top-ranked transfer in the country.
When the dust finally settled after Carr’s commitment in mid-July, Texas had six of the top 30 transfers in ESPN’s transfer rankings — the best transfer class in the country and arguably the portal era.
“There was a method to the madness,” Terry said. “We were putting a team together. What do we need? What are we lacking? It looked like a lot of madness, but we were being very selective. There were guys that we passed on. It was about the right fit and the right situation.”
As Texas’ offseason buzz grew louder, one big question remained: How was Beard going to make all this talent work?
“I’ve done this before. I understand the task, I understand the stage,” Beard said. “The core of it is basketball, man. It’s putting teams together. We would rather have a little bit more than not enough. I don’t want to be walking off the floor apologizing to [returning senior] Jase [Febres], ‘Sorry Jase, we just didn’t do a good enough job recruiting. Our team maxed out and played as well as we possibly could.’ I don’t want to be that guy.”
ONE MOMENT STANDS out to Beard when he talks about assembling this Texas roster. The moment happened early in the summer, after most of the players had a chance to get a feel for each other.
Beard was walking out of the building one night with Timmy Allen, the transfer from Utah, and he asked Allen what he thought of the team.
“I like our team, I like our chemistry,” Allen told Beard. “But we need another playmaking guard.”
One of the reasons Beard and the entire program are confident that chemistry and buy-in won’t be an issue is the communication between the staff and players during the roster-building process. It’s not as if Askew committed and then was blindsided when Carr entered the fold, or Bishop and Disu committed without knowing Beard was still pursuing frontcourt talent.
Each of the four transfers who committed in April — Allen, Askew, Bishop and Disu — said Beard told them he was going to keep recruiting and trying to add players for the 2021-22 season.
“I just want to play the game of basketball. I don’t care about starting. I want to win. That’s it.”
Kentucky transfer Devin Askew
“He knew he wanted to get some guys, and I trusted him to do that,” Allen said. “I might have asked who was coming back and that was it. He’s the best coach in the country, so I know he’s going to do what he has to do to get guys here with us. He did his exact job of building an army around us.”
“Coach said we gotta get as many people as we can,” Bishop added. “We gotta get a lot of good players to win.”
Unselfishness has been a major focus in the early weeks of preseason practice, both in terms of mindset and attitude about playing time and sharing the ball on the floor. It has to be, given where most of these players were last season.
Carr was a third-team All-Big Ten guard and averaged 19.4 points and 4.9 assists; Allen was a first-team All-Pac-12 selection after putting up 17.2 points and 3.9 assists; Mitchell earned first-team All-Atlantic 10 honors and averaged 18.8 points and 7.2 rebounds; Disu put up 15.0 points and 9.2 rebounds; Bishop started every game for a Sweet 16 team and averaged 11.0 points; and Askew is a former five-star recruit who started 20 games as a freshman in Lexington.
And that doesn’t count the returnees. Courtney Ramey has started 74 games over the last three seasons, Andrew Jones is a returning starter who has been in the program for five years, Brock Cunningham was a rotation player for most of the last two seasons and Febres played more than 100 games under Smart.
“From the very first day I talked to Coach and all the guys, that’s been our singular focus … we’re trying to win,” Carr said. “Everything we do is focused on winning. Guys sort of realize they’ve all done their respective things and established themselves and been respected, but the one thing many of us haven’t done at a high level is win and that’s something that we really want to do. We’re coming together around that common goal.”
It helps that Beard has ample experience with transfers and, in some cases, huge roster transformations. During his lone offseason at Little Rock, Beard brought in 10 newcomers — including nine transfers from either Division I, Division II or junior college. Tech’s Elite Eight run in 2018 featured five newcomers in its 10-man rotation, while the 2019 title runners-up had four newcomers in its top eight. He returned only three players for the 2020 season and the team’s best player last season was Georgetown transfer Mac McClung.
This won’t be a foreign task to the well-traveled Beard.
“It’s not out of my comfort zone to add Marcus Carr halfway through the summer,” he said. “It’s not out of my comfort zone on the first day of official practice to have eight players who didn’t play in our system last year. It’s just what I know.”
While the starting lineup doesn’t seem set in stone, especially with Disu still recovering from last February knee surgery, a decrease in minutes for most players is likely — and they seem prepared.
“I knew what I was signing up for. This is what I chose,” Askew said. “Whether you’re a starter or not, that doesn’t make a great basketball player. That doesn’t determine whether you make it to the next level or not. I just want to play the game of basketball. I don’t care about starting. I want to win. That’s it.”
The team connected quickly over the last few months. The players all live in the same apartment building, they’re in the basketball facility for most of the day, and the team went on a weekend retreat to Hensel Camp in Marble Falls, Texas, in early October to get even closer.
They’re not shying away from talking about winning and culture and buy-in, either. They know it’s all part of what will make them successful this season.
“It’s a lot of unselfishness you see right off the bat,” Jones said. “You don’t want to be that guy, you’re the selfish guy who has your own personal intent. You stick out like a sore thumb. Especially in this program.”
In an ironic twist, the unselfishness has swung too far the other way at times — on multiple occasions, Beard had to either stop film or stop practice to point out a player passing up an open shot to find a teammate.
“Shoot the ball when you’re open,” he said. “Your heart’s in the right place, but don’t turn down open shots.”
CHEMISTRY PROBLEMS GENERALLY don’t arise in October, of course. It’s much easier to have a happy locker room before a game is played. Beginning with the team’s opener against Houston Baptist on Nov. 9, and continuing four days later at preseason No. 1 Gonzaga, minutes will actually be distributed and players accustomed to playing 30 minutes a night will be sitting on the bench.
The team is aware its unity is all talk right now, and players say they’re looking forward to proving it on the floor.
“We have to continue to have that mindset, even when the lights come on,” said Ramey. “One night, I might play 20 minutes and Devin might play 35, and I have to be able to look myself in the mirror, OK, that was best for the team. Those are hard conversations, especially with people having their final year of college. But at the end of the day we all want to win, so we have to sacrifice those things.”
Beard recalls an instructive story on this issue. It was during the 2018-19 season, when his Texas Tech team would eventually make a run to the national championship game before falling to Virginia. During a nonconference game early in the campaign, Tech rolled to a win but St. John’s graduate transfer Tariq Owens didn’t play his usual number of minutes.
When Beard walked into the locker room after the game, Owens was dancing and hugging Malik Ondigo, the sophomore big man who played instead of him. He looked at Beard and said, “Coach, I didn’t come here to do anything other than win.”
Beard told the team that story because he knows similar potential situations will come up and he hopes they handle it like Owens.
“We haven’t had any outside adversity yet,” he said. “We haven’t gotten beat, we haven’t gotten punched, we haven’t had that night where a guy really does have to have an unselfish act. Those are going to be tough moments because we’re all competitors. … We all know there’s going to have to be some selflessness going on.”
BEARD IS BIG on catchphrases.
“4 to 1,” (the ratio of importance between mental and physical tasks) “The secret’s in the dirt,” (emphasizing the value of hard work) and “Tough times pass, tough people last” are a few of the staples from his recent coaching stops.
He’s added two since taking over at Texas: “Monday night program” and “We’re doin’ this.”
“Monday night program” is what Beard envisions for Texas basketball. He believes the Longhorns should be consistently competing for national championships and playing on the final Monday night of the college basketball season in early April.
“We’re Doin’ This” is the tagline that accompanies Beard’s photo display when you walk into the University of Texas Athletics Hall of Fame. It’s become a constant refrain around the program, a motivating tool for the players. They’re not waiting two or three years to build the program and then win; they’re doing it now.
But there’s another phrase that has very recently been put into the rotation, and it’s one that fits this unique Texas team perfectly.
“Capable vs. Willing.”
It originated from a speech by Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin to the Hampton Roads Youth Foundation almost 10 years ago.
“It’s not what you’re capable of; it’s what you’re willing to do,” Tomlin told an audience of kids and teenagers. “I know plenty of people that are capable. I know fewer people that are willing.”
When Beard sees on film a player miss an easy box-out and give up an offensive rebound, he uses the catchphrase to show disappointment; when a player sprints down the court faster than he’s done in any previous practice, it’s a good news/bad news phrase.
“Now this is the standard,” Beard says. “You’re capable of doing this. Are you willing to do it every single time?”
Expect Beard to use it plenty more in the coming weeks and months.
With more proven college talent than anyone in the country, Texas is capable of winning a national title this season. Whether the Longhorns are willing to buy in and rally around a common goal will determine whether Beard’s year-one transfer experiment is considered successful.
“The whole decision was based on trying to be a champion,” Beard said. “There’s a difference between good and great. There’s a difference between great and a champion. I think when you’re trying to be a champion, you’re going to put yourself at risk for things to happen and I think the risk here is too many players, chemistry. But I’m not never going to live my life or coach in a way where I’m going to have regrets.”