UNLV to interview Arkansas-Little Rock’s Chris Beard

UNLV has two names in town to interview for their open vacancy. New Mexico State's Marvin Menzies interviewed Saturday morning, and the other name is Arkansas-Little Rock head coach Chris Beard, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

These are the two latest confirmed candidates to interview for the job and there are no other interviews scheduled at this time. Other names that have been mentioned, but not interviewed, have been St. Mary's Randy Bennett and former UCLA and St. John's head coach Steve Lavin.

Beard has spent only one year as the head coach of Arkansas-Little Rock and it is his only Division I head coaching experience. This year he turned around a Trojans program that won 13 games before his arrival and ended up winning 30 games and going to the NCAA Tournament where they upset Purdue before falling to Iowa State in the round of 32.

Prior to moving to the Division I level, Beard was the head coach at Division II at Angelo State where he had a combined record of 47-15 and in his second year guided them to the third round of the NCAA Tournament.

He also was the head coach in the ABA for the South Carolina Warriors and led them to a 29-2 record. He was the associate head coach at Texas Tech under Bobby Knight and has been assistants at North Texas and the University of Texas.

This would be a pretty big jump going from the Sun Belt to not just the Mountain West but a school within the conference that has high expectations due to history and recent recruiting success.