BRACKET WATCH: Ole Miss is back on the host bubble heading into final two SEC weekends

Sunday’s walk-off loss to Arkansas could prove to be the final nail in the coffin when it comes to No. 20 Ole Miss not earning a National Seed and hosting a regional.

Needing three outs, the Razorbacks instead sent the Rebels back to Oxford dropping a second straight series it had within its grasp of securing.

Tuesday’s latest NCAA Tournament projections echo the sentiment with Ole Miss (32-17, 12-12 SEC) sitting just outside the 16 National Seeds after losing five of its last 6 games, all to SEC opponents.

D1Baseball projected Ole Miss to be the 19 Seed – this year’s tournament is ranked 1-32 National Seeds with the top 16 being the usual host teams – and heading to the Hattiesburg Regional. Southern Mississippi is projected as the 14 National seed, hosting the Rebels as the 2 Seed, Campbell (3 Seed) and San Diego State (4 Seed).

The regional is paired with the Athens Regional and No. 3 National Seed Georgia.

Baseball America sees the Rebels a little closer to the hosting bubble, projecting them as the No. 17 National Seed and heading to the Corvallis Regional and 16 National Seed Oregon State. Joining them is Gonzaga as the 3 Seed of the regional and Cal Baptist as the 4 Seed. Ole Miss is essentially considered the top 2 Seed of the 64-team field by Baseball America in this projections.

There are two SEC weekends remaining in the regular season and the Rebels have put themselves in a spot were they have to win the series over No. 9 Texas A&M and No. 19 Alabama and possibly pocket a few wins in Hoover at the SEC Tournament.

“Of the contenders, I think Ole Miss might have more upside but they’re not going to have the conference record. If they were to schedule (Missouri) instead of somebody else we’d be having a different conversation,” Mark Ethridge of D1Baseball said on Tuesday.

Ole Miss currently is No. 13 in the RPI and still No. 4 in strength of schedule. Warren Nolen currently projects the Rebels to finish 14-16 in the SEC

“It’ll be really interesting to see if Ole Miss can go to Hoover, lets say they go .500 (in SEC play) then go to Hoover and win two or three games. Is that enough for the committee to justify them being a host?” Kendall Rodgers of D1Baseball added.

The Rebels and Texas A&M will start their series in Oxford on Friday with a first pitch at 6:30 p.m. CT