Ole Miss still controls its postseason destiny, taking a ‘tournament-style’ approach to LSU

Over the last two weekends the Ole Miss baseball team has gone 4-2 in Southeastern Conference play, securing back-to-back SEC series wins in the process. Though, after Sunday’s 6-0 loss to then No. 3 Texas A&M it still feels like not enough was done.

The Rebels won the first two games against the Aggies with a 4-3 victory on Friday and a dominant 10-2 win on Saturday. But after dropping the series finale at Auburn in a ninth-inning collapse, Sunday’s loss only compounded the feeling of a missed opportunity.

Coming off the final home SEC series of the season Ole Miss (27-24) is sitting with a SEC record of 11-15 and tied with Florida (26-25, 11-16) for 10th place. Entering Sunday’s slate of games the Rebels and Gators were part of a four-way tie for eighth place with Alabama and Vanderbilt. The Crimson Tide and Commodores won their series finales against LSU and Tennessee, respectively, staying a game behind seventh place South Carolina (33-18, 13-14).

Ole Miss and Florida did not. Though these past two weekends were not for naught as the wins amassed have brought the Rebels to a place where they can control their postseason destiny still. If they had completed the sweep of the Aggies on Sunday they would have punched their ticket to Hoover and the SEC Tournament after Auburn’s win over Missouri earlier in the day.

Now, Ole Miss heads into the final week of the regular season sitting three games clear of 13th place Missouri (22-30, 8-19) needing only one win and one Tigers loss at Mississippi State this week to secure a spot in next week’s conference tournament.

“The mindset is you got to win some baseball games. The mindset is now you can see the finish line,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said on Sunday. “We’re in a better position than we were a week ago. We’re in a better position than we were two, three, four, five weeks ago. We’ve played much better, we’ve won some series and put ourselves in a position but now you go to finish.”

This is a shortened week for Ole Miss and the entire SEC with the final series starting on Thursday.

The Rebels take a trip to Baton Rouge and play a LSU team that is currently one game behind them and the Gators at 10-17.

Historically, the winning number to get into the NCAA Tournament is at least 13 SEC wins. The math is now simple for both the Rebels and Tigers. One team needs to win at least two at Alex Box Stadium while last year’s national champions need a sweep to have a chance at defending the title.

“The message is now you are in the NCAA Tournament,” Ole Miss pitcher Mason Nichols said on Sunday. “If you win you control your destiny and our goal is to win the national championship and it will always be to win the national championship. To do that we got to go win some games at LSU and can’t overlook Southern Miss. It’s all important. Every single game. So that focus has got to be there in a tournament-style manner.”

The loss at Auburn stings much worse now. Ole Miss would be heading into this week needing to avoid being swept and putting only one win in its back pocket. Now it needs to try and replicate the success it had in 2022 where the Rebels kept their season alive with a sweep.

Before Thursday the Rebels make a stop in Hattiesburg to take on Southern Mississippi on Tuesday at 6 p.m. CT. The scenario is pretty simple for them and the game at Pete Taylor Park is really inconsequential to the overall goal, though a win is never a bad thing.

“That’s the beautiful part of this season. We’ve put ourselves in a spot where we can do that,” Nichols added.”

The metrics continue to be in Ole Miss’ favor with a RPI ranking of 24 after Sundays games and still No. 2 in the strength of schedule category only behind, of course, 2023 College World Series runner-up Florida.

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