The juggernaut that was the University of Tennessee baseball team for so much of these past four months had to be shaking its collective head in anger and frustration Sunday evening.
There in Omaha, Nebraska, stood Ole Miss reveling in its first-ever baseball national championship, the Rebels having come from behind over the final two innings to top Oklahoma 4-2 and sweep the best-of-three College World Series finals.
But this was also the same Ole Miss squad that UT went into Oxford to play on March 25, when the Rebels were the No. 1 team in the land, and walked out two days later with a three-game sweep by a total score of 26-7.
It was the kind of soul-crushing loss for the home team that sent it into a tailspin, leading to Ole Miss being 7-14 in Southeastern Conference play fairly late in the season.
And as those losses mounted after the UT debacle, whispers began that coach Mike Bianco might not last until the close of his 22nd season on the job. There were loud predictions that Ole Miss would miss the NCAA tourney altogether.
Meanwhile, that sweep of the Rebs was the kind of soul-soaring series for Tony Vitello's Volunteers that made them all but unbeatable from that point forward, the Big Orange running away with both the SEC regular-season and tourney crowns on their way to the overall No. 1 seed in the NCAA's 64-team field.
By contrast, Ole Miss reached Selection Sunday on Memorial Day weekend not knowing if it would be in or out. The Rebs did win seven of their last nine regular-season conference games to finish 14-16 in league play, including a sweep of LSU in Baton Rouge. But they also fell 3-1 to Vanderbilt in their only SEC tourney game.
Would it be enough? Should it be enough?
But then they got in - the last at-large bid awarded, it was revealed that day - and when they got the call, Bianco had a message for his team: "Don't just go to show up. Go to win."
Just like Magnolia State and SEC brother Mississippi State did a year ago. Just like eight of the past 13 CWS champions have called the SEC home. Just as six other SEC schools over the years have won the CWS at least once, which means half of the current 14-team league owns at least one national championship in baseball.
But let's take a second glance at the composition of this 2022 CWS.
Four current SEC schools were in the field: Arkansas, Auburn, Ole Miss and Texas A&M. Two future SEC members were also there in Oklahoma and Texas. Add the fact that Tennessee was the overwhelming favorite to reach Omaha before losing its Knoxville Super Regional final to Notre Dame, and the SEC - in its future makeup - could have had seven of the eight teams in the College World Series.
And everybody looks at the league as a football conference.
To be sure, the Rebs are the kind of warm and fuzzy story casual sports fans love. Just as archrival Mississippi State was a year ago. Yes, these schools operate in the cash-rich SEC, but they're nearer the bottom than the top when it comes to spending. While Texas A&M shells out more than $210 million per year, and Alabama flirts with $180 million and Florida struggles to survive on a little more than $160 million, the Rebs spend around $125 million and Mississippi Sate coughs up roughly $95 million to annually challenge the money monsters in America's most competitive league.
Buying talent - feel free to begin your NIL rant in this space should you so choose - is not the same as signing heart. A bunch of Ole Miss seniors came back for moments such as this, and when they fell into that 7-14 conference hole, they all gathered in the locker room one day before practice, and according to pitcher Dylan DeLucia - named the most outstandig player of this CWS - they "decided we just had to fight it out. Whatever happened, we weren't going to quit."
Added Bianco, who has reached the CWS a total of six times as a player, assistant coach and head coach: "Even at 7-14, I never remember a time they looked like they felt like they weren't going to win."
Instead, they somewhat remarkably won 10 of the 11 games they played in the NCAA tourney, including sweeping the Sooners in the championship round, a run that seemed to have at least half the state of Mississippi - the half not colored Miss State maroon - driving to Omaha for the big moment. Just as that other half of the state had colored Omaha maroon this time a year ago.
And it all clearly touched Bianco, who told the SEC Network after a Powerade bath knocked off his shades: "I was trying to keep my glasses on so you wouldn't see me cry."
But it was something he said the day before the CWS began with eight teams that didn't include UT that should bring a tear or two to the Vols and their fans until this time next year.
Said Bianco that day in a story written by this newspaper's David Paschall: "They really were a team that didn't have a flaw. They had a tremendous rotation and a great bullpen. They could really swing it. They could defend it, and they played with a ton of confidence. They were as good a team as I've seen maybe ever."
At least as good a college baseball team as has failed to win when it mattered the most.
Mark WiedmerContact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @TFPWeeds.