By Parrish Alford
Mississippi State and Ole Miss reach this week’s Southeastern Conference baseball tournament after rocky weekends to close regular season play.
Both left goals on the table with road series losses against ranked opponents, the Bulldogs at Texas A&M, the Rebels at Alabama, ranked No. 10 and No. 28 respectively by Division I Baseball last week.
The Bulldogs won the series opener in College Station 18-11 before losing 11-9 Friday and 7-6 on Saturday and dropped from No. 13 to No. 16 by DI Baseball Monday.
New coach Brian O’Connor’s first regular season ends 39-16, 16-14 and in eighth place. State is in good position to earn a regional host bid, but aspirations for a national seed, which would have given the Bulldogs a Dudy Noble Field path to the College World Series in Omaha, seem a stretch now.
Ole Miss, with its best pitcher, Cade Townsend, on the mound, likely removed itself from regional host consideration in a 6-2 loss Sunday after splitting the first two games in the series. The Rebels dropped from No. 15 to No. 17 in DI Baseball Monday.
The Rebels conclude the regular season at 36-20 overall, 15-15 and ninth place in conference play.
Townsend was named one of 25 Golden Spikes Award semifinalists – the national player of the year as named by USA – last Thursday before giving up seven hits and five earned runs in 3 2/3 innings on Saturday.
He is the seventh Ole Miss player to be named a semifinalist, the first as a sophomore.
This much is certain: whatever serious resume building one team accomplishes in Hoover will come at the expense of the other.
Ole Miss will play the first game as the tournament opens Tuesday with a 9:30 a.m. Central start against last-place Missouri. The Tigers were 23-30 overall and won just six conference games.
Mississippi State will face the winner in the second round Wednesday.
The Mississippi rivals last met in the SEC Tournament in the opening round in 2024 as the Bulldogs eliminated the Rebels 2-1. The two teams combined for only seven hits, and State scored twice in the ninth to win.
O’Connor believes State’s 13 RPI ranking (Ratings Percentage Index) and No. 7-ranked schedule will be assets for the selection committee to consider.
But regional host status “is not for me to determine,” he told reporters following Saturday’s loss.
Critics point to State’s nine Quad 1 wins, the fewest of the SEC’s host-contending teams.
The Bulldogs gained nine of their SEC wins against Vanderbilt, LSU and South Carolina, the Nos. 12, 14 and 15 teams in the SEC standings.
Ole Miss has 11 Quad 1 wins but not enough SEC wins overall. A 16-14 conference record is believed to be the minimum price of admission for regional hosts.
The Rebels had series wins against No. 10 Texas A&M and No. 18 Florida, the latter on the road.
The SEC, in 2023 and 2025, was awarded eight of the 16 available host sites.
Arkansas, Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Tennessee, Texas, Vanderbilt and Ole Miss were hosts last year.
The Rebels failed to advance from their home regional. They were upset by Murray State which went on to defeat Duke and advance to Omaha.
State hasn’t hosted a regional since 2021 when it reached Omaha and won the national championship.
The Bulldogs have had the Rebels’ number this year, however.
State swept Ole Miss in Oxford, rallying in the ninth inning to win 5-4 in the opener then winning 6-1 and 7-1.
After the Sunday finale, Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco told his players: “You should be embarrassed. Be miserable tonight, be embarrassed tonight, and then show up tomorrow ready to get better.”
State won the Governor’s Cup game in Pearl 7-3 on April 28.
Fifteen SEC wins will likely earn the Rebels a 2 seed in one of the 16 regionals, perhaps in Hattiesburg where Southern Miss enters postseason play as the Sun Belt regular season champion after climbing past Coastal Carolina in the stands over the weekend.
The Golden Eagles begin the week with an RPI at 12 and No. 28 in the strength-of-schedule rankings.
The only time Ole Miss has played at Pete Taylor Park in the postseason was in 2022 when the Rebels won the Hattiesburg Super Regional with back-to-back shutouts, 10-0 and 5-0. Ole Miss went on the win the national championship.
Parrish Alford, a two-time Mississippi sports writer of the year, was raised in Denham Springs, Louisiana and graduated from Northeast Louisiana University before the school changed its name to Louisiana-Monroe.
He’s covered college sports in Mississippi since 1989, spending time as a beat writer for multiple seasons at each of the state’s Division I schools.
He’s most known for his work as a beat writer and columnist for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo, where he spent 30 years.
He is the author of “Habitual Deadline – sports stories of three-plus decades from the guy who came and stayed.”
A Christian, husband, father and grandfather, he is currently the editor of American Family News (AFN.net), a division of American Family Association.
