SB Nation Kansas City: All Posts by Bob Lynch

The Image Hugh Freeze Should Have Tweeted

2013-05-23T22:50:11Z

Ole Miss has won three national football championships in the same respect that Alabama has won 15 or 16 or however many dozen they're claiming these days. Back before the BCS, there wasn't really a discrete national championship winner (and, technically, there still isn't, at least as far as the NCAA is concerned - it's needlessly complicated, y'all) and a whole number of college football polls and publications awarded "national championships." Because of this, we have far more national champions than we have actual college football seasons.

Regardless, that doesn't mean that such shouldn't be used as a selling point, especially when it comes to recruits who, themselves, are looking to win some sort of championship during their time in college. To reach this end, Hugh Freeze tweeted the above photo earlier this week, which he or some intern presumably made after a few hours spent in a remedial photoshop course (money well spent!). But this picture... it has problems, as was pointed out astutely by SBN's own Jason Kirk, and rather excoriatingly by the likes of CBS and those smug dickheads over at Deadspin.

First, those aren't our trophies. We don't have them. They're not in any sort of Ole Miss trophy case. Granted, one could argue that they're simply being used for symbolic purposes, but it's still needlessly misleading at its most innocuous. Then there's a quote from Calvin Coolidge, which is an interesting choice considering there are probably 20 more interesting and quotable American presidents to have chosen from. And then there's the fact that, outside of the somewhat iffy national championships claim, there is no mention of any of Oxford's nor Ole Miss' other very redeeming qualities.

Considering that, allow me to submit my revisions to this recruiting tool. Once you see those four- and five-star guys rolling in, you'll thank me.

Click to biggify, then spread this to all the 'croots, y'all.

SEC Baseball Tournament: Ole Miss Rebels vs. Alabama Crimson Tide Open Thread

2013-05-23T13:35:10Z

Well the Rebels dropped a tough one yesterday to Arkansas 2-1 in a very evenly matched game. Great pitching fell through late, as a two-out wild pitch from freshman Matt Denney allowed the winning run to cross the plate in extra innings. Don't fault Denney, though, because the run support for both teams did no pitchers any favors.

After that game, the Tide fell to LSU by a score of 3-0. That means that our matchup sets up the loser to go home, while the winner will advance to play the loser of Friday's LSU/Arkansas game.

Heading into the SEC tourney, the Tide were led at the plate by Ben Moore, hitting for a .290 average, driving in 38 runs and slugging at a .438 clip. Ben Moore is also tied for the team lead with 12 doubles and leads the team with 4 triples. Mikey White led the team during SEC play with a .350 average. Mikey White finished the season tied for second with Kyle Overstreet for .284 average. Brett Booth and Austen Smith are tied for the team lead with 6 home runs each.

The Tide have not exactly been an offensive juggernaut this season but they do pitch and field well enough to stay close in games. The Rebels were fortunate to sweep the season series but will be facing the Tide without their top 3 pitchers available in Wahl, Mayers and Smith. Expect a close game and a higher scoring game, with both teams being thin in pitching right now.

SEC Baseball Tournament: Ole Miss Rebels vs. Arkansas Razorbacks Preview and OPEN THREAD

2013-05-22T11:48:27Z

Ole Miss lives to day two of the 2013 SEC Baseball tournament, and they're set to face number 3 seeded Arkansas at 9:30 AM Central time this morning. Sophomore righty Sam Smith will take the bump against the Razorbacks; his counterpart will be junior righty Barrett Astin. Read more on the pitching matchup here.

The Razorbacks are hitting .261 as a team entering the conference tournament. Brian Anderson has been the hottest Razorback bat, boasting a batting average of .349 with four homers and 33 RBI. He's a stunning is 16-for-28 (.571) with two homers and seven RBI in his last 8 games. He is fourth in the SEC in batting average against SEC competition with .371.

Other Hog bats to watch are Jacob Mahan, who is hitting .291 on the season with two homers and 20 RBI; Matt Vinson, who is batting .287 with two round-trippers and 22 RBI; and Tyler Spoon, who has driven in a team-high 43 runs and is hitting .280 with four homers.

As we noted earlier in the year these two teams are very similar on paper, making this a very interesting matchup in this tournament. As you'll recall, the Rebs took two of three from Arkansas in Fayetteville to open SEC play - let's hope such luck continues.

HT: Fit4LifeLLC and PodKatt

SEC TOURNAMENT: Ole Miss vs. Kentucky baseball preview

2013-05-21T15:21:19Z

SEC TOURNAMENT: Ole Miss vs. Kentucky baseball preview

Our friend Austin Miller is going official and has the preview for today's game on the mother ship.

Rebel Roundup - May 20, 2013

2013-05-20T13:10:13Z

LSU has a blast in 11-9 loss to Ole Miss | The Town Talk
So we avoided the sweep against LSU by winning 11-9 on Saturday. LSU, however, wasn't exactly trotting the A-team out there, as guys like Mason Katz and Raph Rhymes were on the bench once the series was won for the Bayou Bengals. And consider this - we're ranked as a top-20 team in college baseball. We're not exactly a bad baseball team. It's just that the level of talent separating the top-5 teams from the rest of the top-25 is unreal right now. Regardless of all that though, Ole Miss ended the season with a .500 record in conference as the No. 6 seed in the SEC Tournament. Perhaps it's not what we were expecting months ago, but we aren't exactly in bad position right now as far as the postseason is concerned.

Oh, and here's Raph Rhymes scoring an inside-the-park home run while somersaulting over Stuart Turner. It's kinda neat.

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Baseball Opens SEC Tourney With Six-Seed Ole Miss | Kentucky Wildcats Official Athletic Site
It's like deja vu all over again. If you'll recall, the Rebels opened the SEC Baseball Tournament last season with a berth against Kentucky, losing to the Wildcats and failing to advance. This season, the first round of the tournament consists of play-in games, meaning that the Rebels must win in order to proceed to the double elimination portion of the tourney. And while Kentucky might just be 11-19 in SEC play, they did take two of three from our Rebels last month in Oxford.

Tom Luke Returns To Ole Miss Football | Ole Miss Sports dot com
Tom Luke, the brother of Ole Miss offensive line coach Matt Luke, was recently hired as the Assistant AD for Player Development. Luke was a quarterback for the Rebels in the late 80's and early 90's before leaving college to begin coaching football at Jackson Academy.

Eli Manning Not Being Himself | (I can't believe I'm linking this...) TMZ

The idiots at TMZ - perhaps the most narcissistic, purposeless, and vapid show in the history of American television - harassed some guy at LAX who they thought was Eli Manning. The guy wasn't Eli Manning, but that didn't stop them from calling the guy "standoffish" because, you know, approaching strangers at a damned airport is the best way to gauge their enthusiasm and character.

P-Willy Forgot to Zip His Fly | Fanshot

Patrick Willis wears his pants any way he damn well pleases, thank you very much. (Get money, Number 52).

Ole Miss Rebels vs. LSU Tigers Baseball Preview and Open Thread

2013-05-16T17:46:28Z

Mike Bianco is 6-12 all time in Baton Rouge. He averages one win for every series visit down yonder. Considering how we've looked as of late and how they've looked, I'd say that snagging a victory away from the Tigers in Alex Box to ensure a .500 SEC record wouldn't be a particularly bad outcome whatsoever.

Regardless, here's what you should look for this weekend out of the Tigers both on the bump and in the box.

LSU Probable Starters

Thursday - Cody Glenn (Soph. LHP) - Glenn is currently 5-2 with a 2.78 ERA on the year through 12 starts. Through 68.0 innings pitched, Glenn has allowed 27 runs (21 earned) off 57 hits. Glenn has 33 strike outs to go along with 16 walks. Opponents are hitting .231 off Cody thus far this season. Cody has only allowed 11 extra-base hits all season in 247 at-bats. Glenn is a crafty lefty which has been a problem all year for the Rebels.

Friday - Kurt McCune (Jr. RHP) - Saturday is usually Aaron Nola's spot in the rotation but luckily LSU has decided to rest him this weekend. McCune will be making only his 4^th start of the season and is currently 3-1 with a 3.38 ERA (7 appearances). Through 13.1 innings pitched, McCune has allowed 5 runs (5 earned) off 15 hits. He has 8 strikeouts to go along with 4 walks, and opponents are hitting .283 off him thus far this season.

Saturday - Ryan Eades (Jr. RHP) - Ryan Eades currently posts a 8-1 record with a 2.29 ERA in 13 starts. Through 82.2 innings pitched, Eades has allowed 24 runs (21 earned) off 83 hits. Ryan has 69 strikeouts to go along with 23 walks, and opponents are hitting .265 off him. Eades has only allowed 11 extra-base hits in 313 at-bats.

Team Pitching Ranks in Conference:

2^nd in ERA (2.37) (OM 5^th at 2.92)
3^rd in opposing batting average (.216) (OM 5^th at .240)
4^th in strikeouts (412) (OM 7^th with 379)
T-3^rd in hits allowed (377) (OM 4^th with 423)
2^nd in runs allowed (148) (OM 6^th with 194)
2^nd in walks allowed (129) (OM 11^th with 187)
T-2^nd in HR allowed (15) (OM 9^th with 22)

National Pitching Ranks

2^nd in ERA (OM is 19^th nationally)
2^nd in WHIP
7^th in BBs per 9 innings
6^th in K-BB ratio
7^th in Hits Allowed per 9 Innings

The Rebels are lucky in the sense that LSU isn't going to pitch Aaron Nola (10-0, 1.99 ERA), but as you can see they have plenty of other good arms to throw. LSU ranks in the top 10 nationally in almost every major pitching category. Runs will be at a premium this weekend so the Rebels will need to find a way to get some clutch hits, which they have struggled with all season.

LSU Bats

As always, the numbers you see in batting stats represent the following in this exact order: Avg HR RBI SLG% OBP% SB/ATT SO/BB. If you don't know what that means, then watch more baseball.

LSU, as a team, looks something like this: .312 37 326 .443 .395 46/68 258/230

Individual Season Statistics

Alex Bregman .393 5 47 .589 .443 13/14 18/22

Mason Katz .380 13 63 .656 .472 5/12 30/30

Raph Rhymes .343 2 37 .448 .414 2/3 26/22

Sean McMullen .339 1 25 .500 .436 0/2 15/19

Christian Ibarra .337 5 33 .497 .430 0/3 27/25

Key Reserves (minimum 50 AB's)

Tyler Moore .286 0 7 .429 .338 0/0 1/5

Chris Sciambra .258 0 6 .337 .407 2/2 24/17

Other key notes:

The Tigers are scoring 6.85 runs per game.
LSU boasts a very impressive 32-3 home record on the year.
They've done this by only giving up a total of 148 runs on the season (2.79 per game).

The Rebels currently sit as the 5th seed in the SEC Tournament and taking 2 of 3 would probably keep them there, sweeping most likely locks them in as that seed and keeps any slim NCAA regional hosting discussion going. Losing 2 of 3 or getting swept means the Rebels would most likely slip in their seeding, but not enough do too much damage in the SEC Tournament. That does mean, of course, that they'd lose whatever chance they've got, as slim as it may be, to host an NCAA regional.

As always, BeardedGinger and Fit4LifeLLC deserve our undying praise for their contributions to this week's preview.

TLV #180 - Ole Miss vs. LSU and Beyond

2013-05-16T17:23:22Z

In college baseball, perhaps no group of teams can boast as much talent and parity as those in the Southeastern Conference's Western Division. No team within this seven-team group has below a .500 record overall, nor have they any SEC records below the .400 mark. Compare that to the SEC's Eastern Division, which has a total of three teams - Tennessee, Missouri, and Georgia - with overall records below .500 and sub-.300 records in conference play.

Six of the seven teams in the SEC West are within just a handful of games of each other, with a handful of these teams - including our Ole Miss Rebels - being essentially interchangeable in terms of talent level and on-field production. Only one of these teams can realistically stand out among the rest as the best in this division, crossing the threshold from a good college baseball team to that of a great or even elite college baseball team.

Unfortunately, that team just so happens to be the team the Rebels will close the season out against this weekend: the LSU Tigers.

LSU is the 2013 Champion of the SEC's Western Division, finishing last weekend with an impressive 45-7 overall record and a 21-6 SEC record. They are the only opponent separating Ole Miss from the SEC Baseball Tournament and the NCAA postseason. Thankfully, Ole Miss has a strong enough resume and the teams ranked below our Rebels have weak enough resumes that it is all but impossible for Mike Bianco's team to miss postseason contention. Still, quality wins against the Tigers in Baton Rouge, as difficult as they may be to come by, could go a long way in terms of postseason seeding, making this weekend series somewhat important for the Rebs in a way that it is not for LSU.

It is unlikely that the Rebels will sweep the Tigers en route to a subsequent SEC Baseball Tournament Championship, so let's take a realistic approach to our expectations of this weekend, its likely outcome, and what that means for this team's postseason chances.

With their spot in the SEC Tournament and as NCAA regional hosts all but guaranteed, LSU has opted to sit ace Aaron Nola, easily one of the best pitchers in all of college baseball, this weekend against the Rebs. If the No. 14-ranked Rebels can take advantage of this behind the arm of our ace, Bobby Wahl, and win just one game against the No. 3-ranked Tigers this weekend, they will finish with a respectable 15-15 record in SEC play and a third or fourth place finish in the SEC West (the Rebs are currently tied for third with the No. 16 Mississippi State Bulldogs, who finish the regular season with a series at the No. 12 South Carolina Gamecocks). As disappointing as that may be for Ole Miss baseball fans to stomach, who have grown accustomed to better than .500 marks in SEC play as of late, it would not at all hurt this team's chances at a two seed in one of the NCAA's 16 postseason regionals.

Projections for experts and armchair pundits alike have the Rebels as such a seed in Charlottesville, Virginia to Eugene, Oregon and seemingly every place in between. In short, the Rebs will have to travel a long way and prove their mettle against a top team outside of the SEC if they are to advance to an NCAA super regional. If that outcome seems unlikely then, well, that's because it is. The Rebels have not succeeded as of late as a visiting team in an NCAA regional, losing in the College Station regional last year and the Charlottesville regional two seasons before that.

This team is good enough to be competitive, but not nearly as deep to take a series from a better team, especially outside of the friendly confines of Swayze Field. The bats are simply not as powerful as we need them to be, especially to overcome the inexperience which characterizes much of the Rebel bullpen. As much as I would like to see otherwise this weekend against LSU and in the following weekends of the NCAA postseason, what we've seen thus far out of this team is likely a pretty good indicator of the immediate things to come.

That said though, the NCAA postseason has shown that any number of improbable things can and do happen. The Stony Brooks and Fresno States of the world - who have in recent years shocked the college baseball elite with their performances in the College World Series - have proven this. Could Ole Miss get hot and streak its way into Omaha? Sure. Is it likely? Not at all, so don't get your hopes up.

And even if we did, we'd so get obliterated by Vanderbilt in the World Series anyway. It's the only thing that would make sense at that point.

Hotty Toddy, go Rebels, beat LSU, and make me eat crow.

The Nkemdiche Brothers are Staying in Shape this Summer

2013-05-15T19:55:46Z

For those of you worried that the incoming freshman defensive tackle might not be in proper college football shape or have the size necessary to compete right away in the Southeastern Conference, worry no longer.

Good workout in with my bro @denzelnkemdiche love my bro we starve and eat together . instagram.com/p/ZToP6iCs2d/
— Robert Nkemdiche (@Aceboogie_001) May 14, 2013

Obviously that's Freshman All-American Ole Miss Rebel linebacker Denzel Nkemdiche on his left. Denzel is listed as being 5'11" and 203 pounds. If that is to be believed, then his "little" brother Robert is conceivably bigger than the 6'5", 265 pounds he is listed as by ESPN.

Oh, and he's yet to take his first course at Ole Miss as a freshman. It is nearly inconceivable that an 18-year-old can have the build of a rookie in the NFL, but Nkemdiche does. This doesn't lead me to predict any sort of Freshman all-American honors or anything of that sort, but it does serve as evidence enough of his ability to contribute in this league and as a member of this team's defensive line from day one.