Why Arkansas-Little Rock could be the team to pull off the 12-5 upset

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DENVER, Colo – Arkansas-Little Rock coach Chris Beard coached for the better part of a decade under Bob Knight at Texas Tech and he learned a lot about the game and what it takes to build a successful team in those years.

Knight, who is famous for throwing a chair across the court during one of his epic tantrums at Indiana, once told Beard never to throw chairs. Beard remembered that advice last week at halftime during the Sun Belt Conference championship game against Louisiana-Monroe. He wasn’t pleased with his players and wanted to send a message. So instead of throwing a chair in the locker room, he decided to punch a dry erase board.

He broke his right hand.  

He walked into the Pepsi Center in Denver on Wednesday morning with the hand bandaged, having led his team to this first and second-round site in the NCAA tournament in his first year as a coach, in part, because of moments like that halftime talk he had in the championship game. But the Trojans also are here because Beard is all about living now, enjoying now, winning now.

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“I mean, he puts everything he has into what we're doing,” senior Josh Hagins said.   “When he first got the job, we talked to him immediately after the press conference and he talked about not rebuilding, doing anything for the future.  He talked about winning right now.  That's why we stayed and put our trust in him. Chris Beard is a fantastic coach and we all love him.”

The thing is, there was plenty of rebuilding to do when Beard took over last spring. He inherited a depleted roster and ended up adding 10 new players to the team, joining seven players who remained from last season. Less than a year after being introduced as coach, he not only has guided that group to the NCAA tournament, but the Trojans are a popular upset pick in the 12-5 seed matchup against Purdue in the Midwest Regional.

“Me personally, I've been overlooked my whole life,” Beard said.  “I wake up every day with an edge.  Guys like me get one chance.  I wasn't a great player, I don't have a famous grandfather.  I get up every day, surround myself with winners.  Every day I feel like I'm an underdog.”

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The Trojans have been successful as the underdog all season. It’s not a narrative they’re going to stray from now, even though they come into the tournament with some impressive wins on their résumé and tied for the second-most wins in college basketball at 29-5. The only team with more victories is No. 1 overall seed Kansas.

Reflecting Wednesday on the success of his first season and how it has been accomplished, Beard said he always believed it was possible because of the quality staff he was able to put together and the players he saw each day. But it really became clear in the third game of the season back in November when the Trojans won on the road at San Diego State.

At that point, San Diego State had won 32 of its previous 33 home games and 27 consecutive nonconference home games against unranked teams. Beard said the fact that a team with so many new parts under a new coaching staff was able to pull together and win that day told him all he needed to know about the potential of these Trojans.

“Our guys bonded together,” Beard said. “It was a big game for us. It was a big opportunity. We beat San Diego State. I think with that came more confidence. We have a process we believe in, but until you have some early success, until you validate it, you never know if your guys have really bought in. I vividly remember that San Diego State locker room with the look in our guys’ eyes, ‘This process works.’” 

They will be put to the test again Thursday in the first round of the tournament against the Boilermakers, who are the biggest team in the NCAA this year with a pair of 7-footers in A.J. Hammons and Isaac Haas. They also have impressive wins over fellow NCAA tournament teams such as Michigan State, Maryland and Wisconsin. It’s not necessarily a game of polar opposites but Arkansas-Little Rock does like to play up-tempo and speed opponents up with a press. That figures to be the Trojans’ plan, hoping to avoid getting into a half-court game where the Purdue size advantage will be a big problem.

Arkansas-Little Rock shoots 42 percent behind the 3-point line as a team and has four players scoring eight or more points per game and nine players who play 11 or more minutes per game. The Trojans have experience, depth and shooting and they defend well.

“They are a tough team,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said of the Trojans. “They're a hard-nosed team. The thing that amazes me is their ability to defend in a short amount of time.

“Normally when a coach takes over -- and they have quality players -- but it's hard to get anybody as a group to play that well defensively in a short amount of time. So you have to give him credit.

On the back of the shirts Arkansas-Little Rock players wear to warm up is the team’s slogan for the year: ”Why not us?”

Beard said it came to him last spring when he hosted fifth-year senior Jermaine Ruttley on his recruiting visit after he graduated from Florida A&M.

“I’ll never forget it, goose bumps,” Beard said. “Driving to the airport, now this guy has offers from Minnesota, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech, I looked at him and said, ‘Now Jermaine, why not us?’ He said, ‘Coach, I’m coming.’ So right there, we just went with the slogan and ever since it is, 'Why not us?' We’re really proud of what we have in Little Rock.”

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[Kyle Ringo is the assistant editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at kyle.ringo@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KyleRingo