Ole Miss baseball coach Mike Bianco to return for 25th season coaching Rebels | Source
OXFORD — Ole Miss baseball coach Mike Bianco will be back to lead the Rebels in 2025, a source confirmed to The Clarion Ledger.
The source was granted anonymity because no official announcement has yet been made.
The news comes after a 27-29 season, the third straight SEC campaign in which Ole Miss has finished with a losing record ‒ though the first ended in a national championship in 2022. After Mississippi State eliminated the Rebels from the conference tournament on Tuesday night, Bianco said he expected to be back for 2025, but added: "You'll have to ask my boss."
Bianco’s win total at Ole Miss surpassed 900 with a victory over Georgia this season. He has produced 130 MLB Draft picks, 18 postseason appearances, two SEC Tournament titles and a pair of trips to the College World Series.
The Rebels cracked the 2022 NCAA Tournament as the last team in the field and lost just once in the postseason en route to the program's first title.
The Rebels rewarded Bianco with a new contract following the 2022 title ‒ a deal due to pay him $1.625 million annually through 2026, according to a copy of the contract obtained by the Clarion Ledger.
The drop-off in success following the title has been dramatic.
Ole Miss won just six SEC games in 2023, finishing with the program's first overall losing record since 1997. The Rebels missed the SEC Tournament that year for the first time since 2011.
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They managed to get back to Hoover in 2024, and flirted with the NCAA Tournament bubble for most of the season. After finishing under .500 for a second consecutive season, though, the Rebels will again be sitting at home come June.
"We don't make it the last couple years, but I think this year, we're a couple wins away," Bianco said this week. "Again, I don't wanna go through the RPI and strength of schedule and all of those different things. We have to be better and we will be. We've always responded and we will again."
Ole Miss ranked among the bottom three in the SEC in most relevant statistical categories heading into the conference tournament, though it did play the nation's second most difficult schedule.
The Rebels made a team-high 66 errors while scoring 6.1 runs per game and allowing 6.6.
The rotation, which dealt with two season-ending injuries before the first game was played, lacked top-end talent to compete with the SEC's elite. And the Ole Miss lineup, figured to be this team's strength, struggled toward the end of the season. In a season-defining series at LSU, the Rebels scored six runs in three games. They then managed just one run in the SEC Tournament against Mississippi State.
David Eckert covers Ole Miss for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at deckert@gannett.com or reach him on Twitter @davideckert98.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Ole Miss baseball coach Mike Bianco will return to Rebels in 2025
