Why Mike Bianco and Ole Miss baseball aren't worried about a national championship hangover

OXFORD — All of Jacob Gonzalez's hobbies involve a winner and a loser.

The Ole Miss shortstop is a pickleball enthusiast. He used to love playing basketball and football in high school. And his video game library contains almost exclusively sports games. (Madden is his favorite.) He loves competing, and indifference to the outcome of those competitions is not a mindset he has any time for.

"You can never win too much," Gonzalez said Friday at Ole Miss baseball's preseason media day.

This was the line Gonzalez used in response to questions about a potential national championship hangover for the Rebels after they won it all in 2022. It's a classic preseason trope for the previous season's champs in any sport.

Maybe there's something to it. No college baseball champion has repeated since South Carolina did so in 2010 and 2011. Or maybe it's just really hard to be elite ‒ and get all the right breaks – two seasons in a row.

Regardless of the championship hangover's validity as a concept, Ole Miss spent a hefty portion of its preseason meeting with the media explaining that it doesn't expect to experience one.

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"I'm quick to turning pages," said Gonzalez, who homered in the title-clinching win over Oklahoma. "We celebrated this fall for last year, but this is a new team now and we're trying to win the next one."

Nineteen of the 39 players on the Rebels' roster are newcomers, Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco pointed out. So how can they be subject to championship complacency if they didn't actually win the championship?

"The most-asked question since last June 26, especially after getting past the summer, has been, 'How do you put the championship behind you?'" Bianco said. "The truth of the matter is that it hasn't been that difficult. It's pretty easy when you walk into the first team meeting, you have (39) players and (19) of them weren't here last year."

Bianco said he and his staff brainstormed during the offseason about ways for the Rebels to celebrate their achievement – and use it – while ensuring it didn't bog them down.

Fall baseball felt "normal," Bianco said. The onset of official preseason practices on Friday marked the official turning of the page in his mind.

Mostly, Bianco said that last season served as proof that his process worked. But despite the ultimate achievement, Bianco won't be afraid to make adjustments based on new information.

The Rebels will shift their defense this season, he said, acknowledging that had been a point of contention among fans for years.

"One of the good things if you're a coach or you're running a business is trying to continue to do what you do well," Bianco said. "Don't screw that up and just change for change's sake. This year's team is different. There might be some things that we have to do a little bit differently because there will be some guys in some different roles."

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: Why Ole Miss baseball isn't worried about a national title hangover