INSIDER: Rebels Made Strong Case for Hosting

By Ben Garrett

OleMissSports.com Insider

After a regular season where the team never left the top-25 rankings, Ole Miss made a solid case of warranting one of the 16 sites determined by the NCAA selection committee.
 
The Rebels entered the SEC Tournament with the No. 11 ranking in the RPI, which NCAA officials take under serious consideration when deciding host sites. Ole Miss boasts the best strength of schedule in the nation and has 14 wins against teams ranked in the top 25, most in the SEC.

Oxford-University Stadium/Swayze Field has played host to three consecutive Regionals and back-to-back Super Regionals, and there is no doubt that NCAA officials would love to hand yet another Regional to the Rebels. In head coach Mike Bianco’s six seasons since taking the reins of the program, Ole Miss has become one of the nation’s benchmark programs.

With five postseason appearances in six years, Ole Miss has continued to rank among the nation’s elite each season under Bianco. Ole Miss has posted the largest crowds for any NCAA Super Regional each of the past two seasons and posted the highest attendance of any NCAA Regional in 2006. Last year during Regional play, Ole Miss hosted over 58,000 attendees in O-U Stadium.

The 2005 NCAA Regional in Oxford drew the second-largest crowd among all Regionals and generated some impressive revenue through ticket sales. The NCAA received nearly $280,000 from the university following last year’s Regionals and Super Regionals.

On Monday, June 13, 2005, the Rebels’ Super Regional game against eventual World Series champion Texas was the third-most watched television broadcast of a college baseball game in the history of ESPN. It’s further evidence that under Bianco, Ole Miss Baseball has truly become a national name.

With attendance booming in Bianco’s six years at Ole Miss, the Rebels have ranked in the top 25 in national attendance each of the last six years and in the top 10 the last two seasons. In 2005, 170,152 fans filled O-U Stadium, including 26,074 fans for the Rebels’ three-game Super Regional with Texas. That number was shattered a year later with the more than 184,000 fans who traveled to Oxford, including another crowd of more than 26,000 for the Super Regional against Miami (Fla.). 
 
As long as Ole Miss continues its winning ways and the crowds keep pouring through the Swayze Field turnstiles, the fans should have their lawn chairs and coolers ready for another Regional series headed to Rebel land.   

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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