Ole Miss is red hot in Omaha. Best thing to do is to just stay out of its way
OMAHA, Neb. — The old saying of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ could not be more applicable to what is going on with the Ole Miss baseball team in Omaha. After taking down Arkansas on Monday to start 2-0 in the College World Series for the first time in 66 years the Rebels are a perfect 7-0 in the postseason.
No other team has a pristine record in the College World Series. Texas A&M suffered its first loss of the NCAA Tournament on Friday, leaving Ole Miss as the only undefeated team still standing in Nebraska.
More than not making any changes to a team that is red hot and refuses to lose in the biggest games of its season, it also seems head coach Mike Bianco is even taking a step back some and taking his hands off the wheel.
Some meetings have been scaled back or even cut out altogether in the pre game prep work over the last three weeks.
Hitting cruise control in the month of June, starting in Coral Gables, Fla. has seemed to be the right approach.
“It’s been a neat run,” Bianco said. “You’ve seen so many teams over the years get on this. I think Hunter (Elliott) said, getting hot’s real. It’s not just some facetious, it’s confidence, kids playing well. So, when they’re doing that, sometimes the best thing you can do as a coach is let them go.
“We’ve tried to do that. Sometimes it’s hard. It’s not what we do often. But sometimes the best thing you can do is just get out of the way.”
Making it to Omaha was supposed to be the plan. It was Ole Miss’ mission statement in February.
Punching their ticket to the College World Series semifinals and being one the final four teams still playing baseball in June is not a surprise to the players.
“This feels like us,” said Kevin Graham. “Nobody feels like, this isn’t some Cinderella story to us. We shot ourselves in the foot early but this feels like the baseball we should’ve been playing.”
This Ole Miss team was confident heading into Omaha and even before. Seeing their name on the screen on Selection Monday and knowing they had a second chance, a clean slate, energized the players.
Bianco has said before that of the 18-plus times he has been a part of a watch party for the selection show he never saw a previous team react the way this group of players reacted.
Now, two dominant wins in Omaha has Ole Miss in the catbird seat and the players taking that confidence vibe to a new level.
“We knew (we were confident) from the start,” said Justin Bench. “We had a rough patch in the middle where we were 7-14 (in SEC play). We just stuck together, and now I don’t know how many wins we have in a row now, but just with the leadership of Tim Elko, we just stuck together and kept winning games.”
The confidence and sticking to a new approach has Ole Miss a win away on Wednesday from getting to the National Championship series for the first time in program history.
