Mike Bianco’s reaction to Ole Miss players after elimination: ‘You’re not ready for this’

Ole Miss‘ season came to an early end on Monday night after the Rebels suffered a 12-11 loss to Murray State in the Oxford Regional. Following the loss, Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco revealed his postgame message to his players.

“You’re not ready for this,” Bianco said. “You don’t have a speech for this because, like the rest of the 40 in that dugout and probably 12,000 in the stands, we didn’t think we were going to lose, but unfortunately, we did. So you don’t really have that speech prepared, but I’m really proud of them.”

Despite being the 4-seed in the Oxford Regional, Murray State was the best team all weekend. Ole Miss fell to the Racers in the opening round, but clawed its way through the regional to reach the final and rematch Murray State.

Ole Miss exacted revenge on the Racers in the first game of the regional final, running away with a 19-8 win. However, they couldn’t pick up the necessary second victory on Monday to advance to the Super Regionals.

It wasn’t due to a lack of effort. After falling behind 9-3 through the first four innings, the Rebels fought back to come within one run heading into the ninth. Alas, they failed to score in the final ending, ending their season. Although Mike Bianco didn’t envision his team being eliminated in the Oxford Regional, he’s still proud of their season.

“The truth is, there were some older guys that didn’t have to come back. It would have been easy to sign, it would have been easy to move on, and they chose to stay. And that’s special,” Bianco said. “We had some underclassmen. They could have went in the portal, but they chose to stay. And they stayed because they wanted something like they just experienced.

“They signed to come here and play in Swayze Field and play in front of 12,000 people. And for some of those, it hadn’t happened in their career yet, and they wanted a part of that. The new guys, from freshmen to the transfers, everybody was awesome.”

Ole Miss finished its season with a 43-21 overall record and a 16-14 mark in conference play. It was a bounce-back year for the Rebels after posting losing records in the 2023 and 2024 seasons.

“You don’t have the season that we had, you don’t play as consistently as we did, without having a great team,” Bianco said. “… I’m just really proud of our guys. I’m proud of the way they represented our university and the way they played baseball this year.”