After Ole Miss Baseball lost to Missouri in the opening round of the SEC Tournament, they will almost assuredly be a No. 2 in an NCAA regional. The loss could be a wake-up call for the team and give them time to prepare for a run to Omaha.
Issues the Rebels have had all season, like defensive mistakes, poor execution and bullpen mismanagement, haunted them on a big stage against the Tigers.
In a postgame press conference, head coach Mike Bianco was asked what his message to the team after the loss was.
“The message is to understand the sense of urgency of every pitch, of every play,” Bianco said. “Even beyond that, in the game of everything that you do, from rest, to what you eat and what you put in your body, what you think about, all those things affect the baseball game.”
Hopefully, Ole Miss learns from the loss. They lacked urgency against Missouri and were unable to execute throughout the game. The bats went down quickly in the eighth and ninth innings, while the bullpen struggled to put up clean innings.
The Ole Miss offense, which has shown the ability to come back from large deficits, like they did against Georgia and Texas, soared back from a 7-2 deficit to tie the game in the seventh but did not take good at-bats when it mattered most.
The Rebels lacked a strong compete level. They made a good comeback, but never led after the third. The key to clawing back from eight-runs back against Georgia earlier in the season was the bullpen’s ability to put up zeros, which Ole Miss could not do against Missouri. After Missouri’s five-run fifth, they tacked on three more the rest of the way.
JP Robertson came into the game in the fifth and only recorded one out. He walked three batters and allowed four earned runs — his most all season. He threw 22 pitches, only nine for strikes.
Prior to his appearance against Missouri, Robertson had not allowed more than two earned runs in a game all season. He has been a reliable arm all year, until Tuesday. Unfortunately for Ole Miss, it was not Robertson’s day.
He left the game after allowing a run and loading the bases. The biggest hit of the day was a grand slam off Landon Waters. Waters was not at his best, either. He allowed two hits — both homers — and faced just six batters.
Ole Miss responded to Missouri’s five-run fifth with four runs to make it a one-run game. In the top of the sixth, Waters gave up another homer to increase the deficit. The Rebel bullpen, which has been the team’s strongest asset in 2026, was not on its A-game.
Landon Koenig gave the Rebels two innings of work and kept the game close for a stretch, which helped Hayden Federico tie the game with a two-run homer; however, he was overused and wound up with the loss.
Robertson’s lackluster outing, coupled with two mistakes from Waters put Ole Miss behind. Yet, the Rebels were tied and had a chance to win. The eighth is where they lost the game.
Head coach Mike Bianco kept Koenig on the mound for the eighth. After he let up back-to-back singles and a Tristan Bissetta error tied the game, Bianco pulled him for Walker Hooks.
What gets lost in the game-winning hit was that Missouri initiated a hit-and-run on the pitch. The Tiger runner took off for second and the batter hit a well-placed single to the right side.
Paying closer attention to the runner at first, with a pitchout or more pickoffs, could have changed the entirety of the inning. Bissetta’s error that allowed the run to score made things worse. Still, the first mistake in the eighth was not bringing in Hooks to begin the inning.
The original plan for Ole Miss was to bring in Hooks if they had a lead, but asking Koenig for another inning was too much. If he had completed the eighth inning, that would have been his longest outing of the year.
“We tried really hard not to get to Hooks. Really, the goal was to only pitch in the ninth with a lead,” Bianco said. “We just felt in the eighth inning that the game was on the line and then … we made the error, and he came in without the lead or even a tie game.”
Since Bianco left Koenig out for the eighth and they got behind, they had to use their best bullet to stop the damage. Hooks was on short rest. He pitched 3 ⅓ innings against Alabama on Saturday, May 16 in a 6-2 loss.
Ole Miss did not have much of a choice. They needed Hooks to save the game, but they brought him in too late. Mismanagement of the bullpen continued to plague Ole Miss. Hooks could have come into the game to begin the eighth when it was tied at 8-8 and kept it there.
The Rebels will now have to wait until Monday, May 25 at 11 a.m. for the NCAA selection show to determine the regional in which they will play. Ole Miss will rest, take live batting practice and continue to practice during that time. Bianco spoke about the team’s break between games.
“It’s not 10 days, necessarily. It gets through this weekend, and all of a sudden you find out on Monday morning where you’re going, and then it really feels rushed,” Bianco said.
Regionals begin on Friday, May 29, so they will have time to rest and be fully energized for the NCAA Tournament. Notably, the Rebels lost in the first round of the SEC Tournament in 2022 before winning the National Championship.
