Ex-UALR Coach Chris Beard spurns UNLV for Texas Tech

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BENJAMIN KRAIN --3/13/2016--
UALR coach Chris Beard talks to his team during their victory over UL Monroe to win the Sun Belt Conference Championships in New Orleans on Sunday.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/BENJAMIN KRAIN --3/13/2016-- UALR coach Chris Beard talks to his team during their victory over UL Monroe to win the Sun Belt Conference Championships in New Orleans on Sunday.

LUBBOCK, Texas — UNLV says new men's basketball coach Chris Beard is leaving for the Texas Tech job less than two weeks after he was introduced as coach of the Runnin' Rebels.

UNLV athletic director Tina Kunzer-Murphy released a statement Friday and said Beard had told her he wanted the job at Tech, which is vacant after Tubby Smith left to coach Memphis.

Kunzer-Murphy called the "unprecedented" move by Beard "extremely disappointing." She said UNLV will go back to its candidates and hire someone "who really wants to be here and who will honor his commitments."

Beard agreed to a contract with UNLV on March 28.

Beard spent 10 seasons as an assistant at Texas Tech before landing his first Division I head-coaching job at Arkansas-Little Rock prior to last season.

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