Is Ole Miss baseball a NCAA Tournament team?

Entering Saturday’s regular season finale there was one question lingering around Ole Miss baseball and at the end of Saturday that question still remained.

Is Ole Miss a NCAA Tournament team?

The answer could be yes or it could be no or it lies somewhere in between there. It all depends how Ole Miss’ trip to Hoover is this week and how long, or short, it lasts.

A postseason run looked completely out of the cards three weeks ago when Ole Miss was sitting at 7-14 in conference play and sitting dead last. Then a 7-2 run in its final nine SEC games propelled them to the No. 9 seed in this week’s tournament.

They take on No. 8 seed Vanderbilt at 4:30 p.m. CT on Tuesday in the single elimination round.

Win and the Rebels move on to the double elimination portion of the bracket and live for at least another couple days with No. 1 Tennessee waiting on Wednesday.

How big is Tuesday’s game to the Ole Miss’ NCAA Tournament hopes?

The Rebels closing surge to the regular season might have been enough to make the NCAA Tournament.

Finishing with 14 win in conference play is a number that has rarely caused a team to miss joining the Field of 64 in June.

Getting to .500 in the SEC would have been better but those dreams were dashed with Texas A&M’s seven-run fourth inning on Saturday.

Another metric is the RPI and Ole Miss is sitting at No. 36 entering the week and the conference tournaments. That number is okay but it is also a bubble number that could be tricky if upsets occur throughout this weekend, and not just in Hoover.

“No doubt. No doubt,” said Peyton Chatagnier on Saturday when asked if he felt the Rebels were a tournament team already. “We have a lot of older guys and just a couple months ago we were the No. 1 team in the country. I believe we can still be that team.”

There is optimism within the players that they are worthy of earning at at-large bid when the field is revealed in a week on Memorial Day.

Only problem is a resume does not have emotions like that, only numbers and black and white data.

The data shows the Rebels with a 8-12 record against top 50 RPI opponents and either a winning or .500 record against the other three RPI quadrants.

Ole Miss has racked up key wins during this sudden resurgence, not withstanding the closing series against the Aggies. They beat Mississippi State in the Governor’s Cup in Pearl which counts as a SEC win in the eyes of the selection committee, though it’s not very impressive at the moment due to the Bulldogs missing the SEC Tournament a year after winning a national title.

The Rebels swept LSU, who bounced back to earn a top-four bye in the conference tournament. They did manage to get a win over the No. 6 Aggies to add to their collection. Sitting at 32 overall wins is nothing to sneeze at, but collecting a few more this weekend might help keep tournament destiny in their own hands and out of 10 people in a conference room.

“At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter what I think. It doesn’t really matter what you guys think,” said head coach Mike Bianco when also asked if the Rebels are an NCAA Tournament team. “It matters what 10 people (think) that are going to make the decision in Indianapolis. To me it’s wasted energy. The better that you play, the more that you win the better shot’s you got. That’s really the truth.

“I think to this point there are some things, some black marks maybe, on our resume that don’t look great but then there’s also a lot of good things. When you look at what we’ve done over the last three weeks. When you look at what we’ve done against certain competition and our road record, RPI. There’s a lot of good things that we’ve done. Yes, I think we’re a postseason team but I don’t a vote.”