No. 17 Ole Miss didn’t spend much time in Hoover, Ala. thanks to Missouri’s stunning 10-8 upset against the Rebels to start the 2026 SEC Baseball Tournament.
Afterwards Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco and centerfielder Hayden Federico talked about the loss and these Rebels will respond and get ready for the NCAA Tournament next week.
Here’s everything they said.
Mike Bianco, Head Coach
Opening statement…
Obviously, it’s disappointing. It’s never fun to lose, and certainly not fun to lose the first one. Congratulations to Missouri. I thought they played great. I thought McDivitt pitched terrific on short rest, and we just didn’t pitch well enough to win. When you’re in tournament play, you need to be better on the mound. Especially here, although some balls carried uncharacteristically well to left, this has certainly been a field over the years where you have to throw strikes. You can’t give people free base runners. That’s not normal for us, but we walked seven. After Lippert, I thought Will was good, but after that, I don’t know if a reliever got through his outing without giving up a run besides Kelly at the very end. That’s just not good enough. We had several opportunities. The offense gave us a shot to stay in the game, but we weren’t good enough on the mound today.
On message to team after SEC tournament loss…
Obviously, it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating to lose. As I said earlier, it’s frustrating to lose the first one. We’ll get over it, but the next time we do this, you’re in postseason now. Although this is single elimination and you lose, you go home, there will be a time where you may get one mulligan because it’s double elimination. But eventually, you lose and it’s over.
For some guys, their baseball lives will be over. They’ll never play again, and certainly this team will never be put together again. The message is to understand the sense of urgency of every pitch and every play, but even beyond that, everything that you do. From rest, to what you eat and what you put in your body, to what you think about — all those things affect the baseball game. It’s so subjective. Nobody knows exactly how much. But when your back is against the wall and there could be finality, I think that sense of urgency rises.
We’re disappointed. Obviously, nobody wants to come here and lose. But as Hayden said, instead of being miserable, we’ll leave here in a couple hours, get back to Oxford and start to prepare. Some of that is practice. Some of that is in the weight room. Some of that is rest for pitchers. Some of that is live BPs for guys who haven’t pitched. We’ll prepare the best we can to be ready next week.
On veteran leadership in times like this…
The leadership is tremendous. I think the faces of the program, Elliott and Utermark, just those two alone mean the world to the pitching staff and to the hitters, respectively. But there are other guys throughout the team who pick each other up, from Fawley to Rutter and other guys. Furniss is almost the forgotten one, the steady one who shows up every day and does his job. They get it. They understand. The leadership of any really good team, when you look back, is something you talk about more at the end when it’s all over. Or when it doesn’t go well, usually it’s because of a lack of leadership and some of those things. We feel really good about our guys and the guys out front.
On schedule before NCAA Regionals…
As far as the next 10 days, or whatever that is, it’s going to be a variety of things. There’s certainly practice involved, but also sitting down with Coach Mangrum and trying to figure out what we need to do with the guys who didn’t throw. What’s the best plan of attack? I’m sure some of that will be rest, and that’s one of the reasons Hunter didn’t pitch today. We tried really hard not to get to Hooks. The goal was really only to pitch him in the ninth with a lead, but we felt in the eighth inning that the game was on the line. He was hot, then we made the error, and he comes in without the lead or even a tie game. Some of that is rest. Some of that is live BPs. Some of that is practice. Some of that is healing. There are a lot of different things going on, but it will get quick. It’s not 10 days necessarily. It’s get through this weekend, and then all of a sudden you find out Monday morning where you’re going. Then it feels rushed if you’re going somewhere. If you’re coming home, then it’s trying to find out all the information about the teams coming in. We’ll do as much as we can until we get to Monday, and then we’ll figure out where we are and who we’re playing.
On Grayson Gibson…
If everything had gone as planned, he would have been ready to pitch Thursday in some capacity. He’s had a few live BPs, and he’s done really well. He looks like he did prior to the injury and the layoff. I think he’s happy. Joel’s happy. Everybody was happy with where he is. We just didn’t stick around long enough. What does that look like? Is it more live BP? Is it more of an intrasquad? We haven’t gotten that far, obviously, because we weren’t preparing to leave on Tuesday afternoon and go back to Oxford.
On Landon Koenig’s outing Tuesday…
He does that. For a guy who has that much velocity and an array of pitches, he throws the ball into the strike zone, and he’s always done that. I was just proud of him being able to eat up some innings. Of all the guys who ran out there, he may have done the best. We were trying to squeeze as much out of him as possible. I thought he was really good today.
Hayden Federico, CF
Message to teammates after loss…
It’s a blessing that we still get to keep playing. We put ourselves in a good position, whether that’s hosting or as a two-seed somewhere. At the end of the day, this isn’t the end of the world. It’s not the end of the season. Now we have a longer time for guys to heal up, for pitchers to get their arms back right, and we’ll be ready to go wherever we have to go.
On preparing for NCAA tournament with extra rest time…
I think it’s the process every day. Coach Bianco talks about it, whether that’s in the weight room, in the batting cages or on the field. It’s just fine-tuning things. I think it’ll be a really great opportunity for us to get better and make a run.
On ABS challenge system…
I didn’t think much about it, honestly. Missouri had a lot of ones go their way, so that was a little frustrating, but their catcher did a great job of using it. It’s part of the game. It’s the rule, and it is what it is.
On playing with Dom Decker and Austin Fawley…
It’s awesome. We got Dom Decker from Murray State, and he’s a guy who didn’t hit any homers last year. Now he’s got 10. He’s just one of the best teammates I’ve ever had. Same for Fawley. Fawley got off to a really slow start this season, and he’s picked his batting average up by about 80 points in the last three weeks. He does his job every day behind the dish, and he deserves everything he’s getting. They’re huge pieces for us.
On past experience at NCAA Regionals helping this team…
I think we’ll be ready. Guys have been through the fire before, and they want to be out there. They want to win. We’ve had multiple guys who have played in Omaha, I’m pretty sure with Dom and Hunter, so they know what it takes. Everybody wants to win, and we want to play as long as we can. We don’t want to leave these seniors going out sad.
