OXFORD ― Amid reported interest from Arkansas, Ole Miss basketball coach Chris Beard clarified his commitment to the Rebels program with a social media post on Friday afternoon.

"Hotty Toddy," Beard wrote in all caps. "Great times ahead in Oxford. We are just getting started."

Beard was tipped as one of the primary candidates to succeed Eric Musselman as the next coach at Arkansas after he left for Southern Cal. Beard has ties to that state from his time at Little Rock.

Beard's decision to stay in Oxford is a massive win for Ole Miss and Keith Carter. The Rebels athletic director stirred national controversy last March when he hired Beard to lead the program he once played for. Texas fired Beard following a domestic incident involving his then-fiancee. The felony charge against Beard was later dropped.

Fielding a roster rapidly rebuilt by the transfer portal after former coach Kermit Davis left behind a 12-21 team, the Rebels went unbeaten through their nonconference slate, then began SEC play 5-3.

They played exciting, high-scoring basketball and shot the 3-pointer more efficiently than anyone could have anticipated.

The Rebels returned to the AP poll for the first time since 2019, spending four weeks as a ranked team. They set a program attendance record when they packed 10,630 fans into the SJB Pavilion for a weeknight game against Mississippi State.

Then the bottom fell out.

Ole Miss lost nine of its next 11 games, sliding from a near lock for the NCAA Tournament into a non-factor as the season reached the stretch run. Finishing with a 20-12 record, the Rebels declined an invitation from the NIT.

Still, it represented progress. Beard signed a new state contract on March 12, according to documents obtained by the Clarion Ledger. The contract does not lay out his buyout terms, and the university has not yet provided reporters with a term sheet for Beard's salary.

The Ole Miss roster will look much different when next season begins. Three Rebels ‒ all freshmen ‒ are reportedly in the transfer portal. Leading scorers Matthew Murrell and Allen Flanigan are set to move on. The Rebels have not landed their first transfer portal commitment.

If Ole Miss is to get back to the NCAA Tournament next season, it will have to improve defensively.

In seven previous full seasons as a Division I coach, Beard's teams had ranked in the top 20 of KenPom's defensive efficiency metric five times. His worst finish was 56th in Beard's first season at Texas Tech, which predated the quick fixes offered by the transfer portal.

The Rebels finished with college basketball's No. 140 defense ‒ worse than the mark earned by Davis' 2022-23 team, which won three SEC games.

Ole Miss was similarly undone by its inability to rebound effectively. Even with a pair of 7-footers prowling the paint, the Rebels were one of the four worst defensive rebounding teams in college basketball.

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David Eckert covers Ole Miss for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at deckert@gannett.com or reach him on Twitter @davideckert98.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Chris Beard: Ole Miss coach pledges commitment amid Arkansas interest