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Ole Miss

Mike Bianco shares example of Ole Miss chemistry throughout season

Danby: Daniel Hager05/25/25DanielHagerOn3
Mike-Bianco-shares-example-Ole-Miss-chemistry-throughout-season
Ole Miss Rebels' Will Furniss (36) celebrates his home run as Ole Miss Rebels take on LSU Tigers during the SEC baseball tournament at Hoover Met in Birmingham, Ala., on Saturday, May 24, 2025. | © Jake Crandall/ Montgomery Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

It’s been a steady season of growth for Mike Bianco and his Ole Miss Rebels, who are poised to head back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2022 when it won the College World Series. Chemistry and leadership have been major factors in the program’s resurgence, according to Bianco.

“Chemistry and leadership, those are essential to success,” Bianco said with a grin following Ole Miss’ 2-0 SEC Tournament semifinal win over LSU on Saturday. “But a lot of times, those are questions usually answered at the end. A lot of people ask about that in the fall and in the fall, everybody plays and you don’t win or lose. But in the spring, all of a sudden only nine or 10 games and you have 40 men on your roster. That means that 75% of your guys aren’t in that lineup today.”

“Once that starts to happen, you start to see what kind of team you have. The best example I can give you is we haven’t always been our best this year. There’s been games we’d like to take back. There’s been weekends we’d like to take back. But we never hit a stretch where we were just bad. We seemed to always recovered.

Rebels have adopted “shower well” mantra

Ole Miss went just 5-5 in its 10 SEC series this season, but was not swept. It’s longest losing streak reached just four games, but it bounced back and won five of its next six games following the skid. The Rebels have bent but not broken all season long, and that resilience has them in position to possibly an NCAA Tournament Regional in Oxford for the first time since 2014.

“One of the mantras of the year has been ‘shower well’, and what that means is its a metaphor for if you win or lose that day, shower well and let that win/loss go down the drain and show up tomorrow. It’s a new day.”

The Rebels have won 13 of their last 19 games, including major RPI boosters over No. 1 Vanderbilt (x2), No. 26 Oklahoma, No. 34 Mississippi State (x2), No. 3 Auburn (x2), No. 16 Florida, No. 5 Arkansas and No. 12 LSU. Ole Miss is up to No. 10 in the RPI Rankings, an eight spot increase from one week ago.

Following its three wins in the SEC Tournament, it has set itself up with a date with Vanderbilt in Sunday’s SEC Tournament Championship game. The Rebels are seeking their first conference tournament championship since 2018 and just the fourth in program history.