Last week, Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco talked about his team’s plan for the long break between the SEC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament. He framed it as a chance to rest, reset and prepare until Monday, when the intensity spikes for all 64 teams still standing.
Well, it’s Monday, and the engines are running at full power.
Whether that break ends up being a good thing or a bad thing is impossible to know right now because, as it always is in sports, hindsight is 50/50.
“Nobody knows,” Bianco said Monday when asked if the time off helped. “It’s one of those things that you’ll look back on and hope it was kind of that blessing in disguise, if you will.”
That’s one of the truest realities in sports. The future decides whether a decision was smart or costly. If Ole Miss shows up in the Lincoln Regional sluggish and loses two straight, the 10‑day break will look like a problem. If the Rebels come out swinging and the pitching looks sharp, the break will be exactly what they needed.
LINCOLN REGIONAL
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But that’s mostly something for fans and media to debate. The Rebels are focused on a tough regional in a place Bianco has never been.
“I’ve seen it years ago when Dave Van Horn was there and they were doing so well,” Bianco said. “I clicked on the stadium, in all honesty, on Wikipedia, just to see what it looks like.”
He’s not alone. Most of the roster will be seeing Lincoln for the first time.
“I’ve never been to Lincoln, Nebraska,” third baseman Judd Utermark said. “I think there’s a lot of history there in that ballpark. I’m curious to see how it plays. I don’t know the dimensions or how the field plays, but that’s something that we can’t control.”
What Ole Miss can control is its preparation for Arizona State, the Rebels’ first opponent on Friday. It has been 19 years since the two programs met, back in the 2007 Tempe Super Regional, where the Sun Devils won 4‑3 and 7‑1. These are very different teams now, but the challenge is real.
“I don’t know much about the other clubs. I’ve barely glanced at them, probably more so Arizona State because that’s who we play,” Bianco said. “They’re a good team… certainly they have a big ace on the mound and one of the best offensive players in the country. They have a really good offense, 108 home runs. We play a lot of people that have more home runs than us, so they’re a team that’s certainly going to be a big challenge.”
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That ace is 6‑foot‑5 right‑hander Taylor Penn, who is 6‑0 with a 3.22 ERA, 47 strikeouts and 17 walks. It’s too early to know if he’ll start Friday, and Ole Miss hasn’t finalized its own pitching plans either.
“We’ll decide that probably later tonight or tomorrow,” Bianco said. “Joel didn’t get a chance to see too much, so we’ll reconvene again. We talked a little bit about it right before practice, but we’ll talk more about it and promise to try to get it out to everybody as soon as we can.”
If both teams throw their best arms, Friday could turn into a pitcher’s duel.
First pitch between Ole Miss and Arizona State is scheduled for approximately 7 p.m. on ESPN2.
