Ole Miss baseball set to open SEC Tournament action vs. Missouri Tuesday morning

HOOVER, Ala. — The path for the Rebels to book Swayze Field as an NCAA Tournament host venue narrowed significantly last weekend, but there still is a chance, albeit a small one, for Ole Miss to host.  But they’ll have to make a run in the SEC tournament which begins Tuesday morning.

After dropping a road series to Alabama to close the regular season, the Rebels enter the SEC Tournament with their postseason hosting hopes having dwindled compared to where they were just a few short weeks ago. According to both D1Baseball and Baseball America, Bianco’s squad is slotted as a No. 2 regional seed, in need of a special showing in Hoover to work their way back into the ranks of the top 16 national seeds.

Ole Miss opens SEC Tournament play Tuesday morning at 9:30 a.m. against Missouri, the tournament’s 16-seed who never quite figured out how to get their season off the ground. On paper, the opening game is certainly a favorable draw for the Rebels, but even the most casual college baseball fans know that nothing is ever to be taken for granted on the diamond.

The Rebels arrive at 36–20 overall after a regular season that has, at times, felt difficult to define. Ole Miss recorded series wins over tournament-projected teams like Texas A&M, Florida and Tennessee, and has looked capable of competing with just about anybody in the country when they were able to make all the stars align. But the infamous instances of inconsistency when Bianco and company seemingly couldn’t figure out how put all the pieces together made much of the Rebel faithful want to rip their hair out in certain moments.

That unevenness was on full display in two of the team’s final three series against the likes of Arkansas and Alabama. Even more frustrating was the fact that if Ole Miss had won even just one of those two series, they may well be currently sitting on the hosting line, possibly even without needing a spectacular showing in Hoover to maintain such a status.

However, this is a team without time for ‘should’ve, could’ve, would’ves’ —there is far too much at stake right now to be wishing things had gone differently in the past.

The final opportunity to improve their standing in the eyes of the committee awaits Ole Miss in Hoover.

Missouri enters as clear underdog

Missouri arrives in Hoover as the SEC’s last-place team after what was undeniably a season to forget in Columbia.

The Tigers underperformed in nearly every major statistical category during league play and finished the regular season with one of the conference’s weakest pitching staffs statistically. Jabari Brown’s pitchers frequently found themselves unable to hold their own against many of the conference’s higher-scoring teams, and against the conference’s deeper lineups specifically, putting up runs simply became too easy for opponents.

On the other side of the coin, the Tigers’ offense also struggled to consistently produce enough to make up for their problems on the mound, ranking in the conference’s lower half in both batting average and total runs scored.

Still, as mentioned before, nothing is ever to be taken for granted in Hoover.

And Ole Miss has too much to play for to overlook anybody.

Ole Miss offense still searching for consistency

The identity of Ole Miss offensively has been fairly obvious for most of the season: power, power, and more power.

The Rebels enter tournament play with more than 90 home runs, ranking among the SEC leaders in long balls and continuing to rely heavily on middle-of-the-order thunder to generate offense. Judd Utermark has anchored that production, recently setting the program’s all-time home run record, while Tristan Bissetta and Will Furniss have continued providing consistent run production around him.

When the lineup gets rolling, Ole Miss can play with anybody.

But the Rebels’ offense is far from concern-free. Despite the home run totals, Ole Miss finished the regular season near the bottom of the SEC in team batting average at .264, and there have notably been times during the season when Bianco’s offense frustratingly couldn’t get anything meaningful cooking, especially against the team’s better pitching staffs. There have also been times when innings have disappeared far too quickly when opposing pitchers figured out how to neutralize the home run ball, illustrating how concerningly home-run-or-bust the Rebels have been at certain points in the season.

Against Missouri’s pitching staff, however, Ole Miss may have an opportunity to regain some offensive rhythm and rediscover its groove before the bracket inevitably becomes more difficult later in the week against the likes of Mississippi State and possibly Georgia, should the team advance that far.

The pitching decision becomes interesting immediately

One of the more fascinating questions entering Tuesday is what Ole Miss has decided to do on the mound. The projected pitching matchup is:

LHP Wil Libbert (2-2, 6.97 ERA) vs. RHP Josh McDevitt (3-5, 4.03 ERA)

Because the Rebels are likely going to shoot for multiple wins in Hoover, there’s a balancing act involved in how aggressively Bianco wants to deploy his frontline arms this early in the tournament.

That is reasonable argument for saving the likes of Hunter Elliott or Cade Townsend for later-round matchups and instead piecing Tuesday’s game together with Libbert and a bullpen-heavy approach, if needed. At the same time, the danger of trying to get too creative this early in Hoover is obvious. Lose Tuesday morning, and the hosting conversation disappears altogether.

Ole Miss still enters with a clear statistical advantage on the mound.

Townsend finished the regular season with one of the SEC’s best ERAs, while Walker Hooks developed into one of the conference’s premier late-inning bullpen arms. The Rebels, overall, were significantly more reliable than Missouri in run prevention across the course of SEC play.

Bigger picture hangs over everything

Nobody inside the Ole Miss clubhouse is likely to spend any time publicly talking about hosting scenarios this week. Bianco rarely does. But the reality still is what it is: despite a few of the late-season outcomes, hosting isn’t out of the question with a strong showing in the conference tournament.

The good news for Ole Miss is that opportunities still remain in front of them. The SEC’s strength gives every tournament win added weight this time of year compared to arguably any other conference, and a deep run — which would likely need to be at least three wins, if not four — would almost certainly push the Rebels right back into serious hosting discussions as if they never left.

The bad news is that the margin to get there is gone.

And beginning Tuesday morning against Missouri, every game starts carrying consequences regarding postseason positioning. The question will become whether Bianco’s team will play like it.

Ole Miss news and notables

• Ole Miss comes into the tournament as the No. 9 seed after finishing 15-15 in conference play.
• The Rebels finished the regular season with a RPI of 15 and the third-toughest schedule in the country.
• They have 11 Quad 1 wins (ninth-most in the NCAA) and have played 28 total games against Quad 1 opponents (third-most in the NCAA).
• Ole Miss and Auburn are the only two teams in the SEC to have played series against all of the top five teams in the conference standings.
• Five different Rebels earned All-SEC honors for the first time since 2021. Walker Hooks was named to the First Team as one of three relief pitchers. Will Furniss, Cade Townsend, and Judd Utermark were all three named to the Second Team at their respective positions. Hunter Elliott was named to the All-Defensive Team as the only pitcher.
• Taylor Rabe has struck out 27 batters over his last two starts, 14 against Texas A&M and 13 against Alabama.
  Rabe is the first Rebel since Liam Doyle in 2024 with back-to-back 10+ strikeout outings. His 27 total strikeouts are the most over two starts since Gunnar Hoglund in 2021.
• Rabe leads the SEC in strikeout-to-walk ratio, striking out 10.12 batters for every walk issued. He has issued just eight walks all season.
• Austin Fawley is hitting .441 (15-for-34) with six home runs, 13 RBI, and an OPS of 1.471 in the month of May.
  Fawley has hit eight home runs over his last 13 games, after hitting just four over his first 36. 10 of his 12 home runs came in SEC play.
• Utermark is hitting .351 (13-for-37) with three home runs, eight RBI, and 10 runs scored in the month of May.
• Utermark, Fawley, and Tristan Bissetta have combined to hit 50 of Ole Miss’ 92 (54%) home runs this season.
• The Ole Miss pitching staff is one of seven staffs in the entire country to have over 600 strikeouts, racking up 627 punchouts this season. Their strikeouts per nine innings of 11.7 and their strikeout per walk ratio of 3.52 are both ranked third in the NCAA.

Game Information:

Ole Miss will take on Missouri in the opening round of the SEC Tournament on Tuesday, May 19, at 9:30 a.m. on SEC Network.

(Photo credit: Pat Smith)