From National Champion to Veteran Leader: Hunter Elliott Ready for Another Postseason Run
OXFORD, Miss. — As Ole Miss prepares to open NCAA Tournament play this weekend, veteran left-hander Hunter Elliott made it clear Monday that postseason baseball is simply not the same thing as regular-season baseball.
The stakes are higher. The emotions are sharper. And every pitch carries weight that is nowhere to be found in the regular season.
“It seems everything’s elevated a little bit,” Elliott said following the NCAA Tournament selection show.
“You’re pitching with the knowledge that it could be your last time that year. You may be playing your last couple games with this certain team. So I feel like that kind of elevates it a little bit.”
Hunter Elliott
For Elliott, that reality carries even more significance this season. The veteran, Tupelo, Mississippi native is the final remaining player from Ole Miss’s 2022 national championship-winning team, giving this postseason run the added emotions of finality as he attempts to lead the Rebels to another deep postseason run.
“And then obviously you just realize each pitch means way more this time of year,” Elliott continued. “Each run is just so important. The importance of everything just seems a little bit more elevated.”
Ole Miss enters the postseason at 36–21 overall and 15–15 in SEC play after being selected as a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament field. The Rebels were bounced from the SEC Tournament in their opening game by Missouri, a frustrating result against the conference’s last-placed team that effectively dashed Bianco and company’s hopes of booking Swayze Field as an NCAA Tournament venue.
Instead, a tough test awaits the Rebels in Lincoln that many around college baseball immediately identified as an anything-but-easy draw. Ole Miss opens with No. 3-seed Arizona State, while host and No. 1-seed Nebraska plays South Dakota State.
Despite the disappointment of the SEC Tournament loss, Elliott emphasized the obvious sliver lining of having additional rest time.
“It’s been good. I haven’t necessarily spent it without a baseball in my hand, but no, it’s been good. The body feels really good.”
Elliott on the layoff
Elliott credited Ole Miss pitching coach Joel Mangrum and the Rebels’ staff for striking a balance between rest and maintaining poise and sharpness over the past few days and weeks.
“I think Joel did a really good job getting us enough work, but making sure that this rest was really important and that we feel better coming out of it,” Elliott said. “We did a little live BP session, 20, 30, 40 pitches. So yeah, the body feels really good, ready to go.”
That physical freshness could prove especially important for Elliott, whose season has steadily stabilized over the course of the season.
The left-hander enters the postseason with a 4–2 record, a 5.49 ERA and 77 strikeouts across 59 innings pitched. While the ERA may not seem earth-shattering compared to some other arms in the conference, Elliott’s strikeout total ranks among the better marks in the SEC, and several of his strongest outings have come late in the season against high-level competition.
“I feel like everything’s kind of started to click a little bit here recently. I feel like some of my better starts have come later this season. I feel like the body’s kind of clicking into a really good spot.”
Hunter Elliott
Again, Elliott pointed back to Mangrum’s role in helping Ole Miss pitchers manage the grind of playing in the nation’s toughest conference.
“He gives us really good off days when he can tell the body needs an off day,” Elliott said. “I feel like the body and everything’s really primed for this run.”
The Rebels will certainly need the best version of Elliott if they hope to advance out of the regional. Ole Miss possesses enough talent to compete with anybody in the country when healthy and playing clean baseball, but inconsistency frustratingly followed the Rebels throughout portions of conference play.
Offensively, Ole Miss remains one of the SEC’s more dangerous power-hitting teams, led by Judd Utermark and Tristan Bissetta, both of whom finished the regular season among the conference leaders in home runs. Cade Townsend also emerged as one of the league’s most reliable starting pitchers down the stretch, giving the Rebels a formidable one-two punch atop the rotation.
Elliott acknowledged that postseason baseball also requires a different mindset from pitchers, particularly in a regional format where roles can change quickly.
“I mean, that’s a great example, man,” Elliott said, referencing last season’s postseason usage patterns. “You just have to lay it all out there this time of year.”
For Elliott, individual performances become secondary once the NCAA Tournament begins.
“It’s so much more about the team and not really much of it’s about you. The only thing that matters is winning at the end of the day, no matter if you win 10–9 and you threw that game or if you threw a complete-game 1–0 shutout. The only thing that matters is winning.”
Hunter Elliott
Now, Ole Miss hopes that mentality, paired with a rested pitching staff and a roster that has already navigated the SEC gauntlet, will be enough to extend the career of the final remaining player from the Rebels’ national championship team to another super regional… and maybe even something more.
Next Up:
Ole Miss begins the NCAA Tournament with a matchup against the Arizona State Sun Devils in Lincoln, Nebraska on Friday, May 29, at 8:00 p.m. central on ESPNU.
Jacob Quaglino
Jacob is a New Orleans, LA native and Ole Miss alumni, Class of 2024 and staff writer with The Rebel Walk. He has been a diehard fan of all Ole Miss sports his entire life, with his earliest Ole Miss sports memory being the Rebels' iconic 2008 upset of then-No. 4 Florida. Among his other favorite Rebel sports memories are storming the field after beating LSU in 2023 and Georgia in 2024, watching the Rebels upset Alabama in back to back years in 2014-15, seeing the women's golf team win the school's first-ever NCAA-recognized national championship in 2021, and watching the Rebel baseball team win the College World Series in 2022. He remains exceedingly hopeful that the Ole Miss Athletics Department's national championship trophy collection will grow in the coming years. Outside of The Rebel Walk, Jacob also works for a local radio news station and has many interests and hobbies, including reading, writing, watching college sports, playing pickleball, and traveling.
