OXFORD — Riley Maddox will start for Ole Miss on Friday when Ole Miss meets Murray State in the second game of the Oxford Regional at Swayze Field.

First pitch is scheduled for 7 p.m. Georgia Tech and Western Kentucky meet at 2 p.m. to begin the regional.

“We looked at it all and thought that worked best through all three games,” Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco said Thursday morning following the Rebels’ practice. “I think first you want to take it one game at a time, as everybody would imagine. But a lot of the splits and things that you look at are similar to all three clubs. We thought it was the best way looking at all three clubs that we might end up playing.”

Maddox (6-5) was dominant in Ole Miss’ win over Arkansas last Thursday at the Southeastern Conference Tournament in Hoover, Ala. He scattered three hits and two runs in 5 2/3 innings versus the Razorbacks. He’s pitched well in four of his last five starts.

Presumably, Ole Miss will use ace Hunter Elliott on Saturday.

Bianco said pitcher Mason Nichols, who suffered a mild oblique strain earlier this month and did not pitch in last week’s Southeastern Conference Tournament, threw a bullpen session Wednesday and should be available this weekend in some capacity.

Outfielder Ryan Moerman, who suffered a knee injury in a collision with fellow outfield Isaac Humphrey in the Rebels’ SEC Tournament win over Arkansas last Thursday, is still feeling the effects of that incident but should be available.

Bianco said he wanted to see how Nichols recovers from his bullpen. Moerman, he said, is “better.”

“He’s in a brace but he’s come a long way,” Bianco said. “He’s taken (batting practice) and all his swings the last couple of days. He’s shagging balls in the outfield but if you watch real close you can see there’s a limp there. I watched him run the bases (Wednesday) and it was better than we thought, so each day, he keeps better and that’s what they say it will be, so we will have to see.”

Will McCausland had a strong fall after transferring to Ole Miss from St. Joseph’s. Then, when the Rebels’ season began, the right-hander from Harleysville, Pa., was “a little tentative,” Bianco said.

Following the Rebels’ series versus Florida in late March, Bianco and McCausland had a direct conversation.

“I honestly got a little bit of a kick in the butt from Coach B and and the second half of the season, I was a totally different story. It was what I was anticipating for the entire year and it felt great really helping our team win in whatever possible role I can.”

McCausland said Bianco asked him if “I wanted to be a dude or not.”

“I obviously want to be a dude and I flipped the script, when out there on the mound with more of a killer instinct than I had in the first half and was really able to help my team in a way I wasn’t able to in the first half of the year.”

McCausland has thrown 38 1/3 innings for Ole Miss this season, going 2-0 with two saves while striking out 51 hitters and walking just eight. He’s lowered his ERA to 4.23 while posting an impressive 1.17 WHIP.

“He’s pitched with a lot more confidence,” Bianco said. “The stuff has ticked up from the fall but I think the biggest thing is his aggressiveness to attack hitters, which looks more like he attacked our hitters in the fall, and just body language and attitude. He’s been terrific in the second half of the season. He’s been elite for us.”

Georgia Tech believed it had earned a host site when it won the ACC Tournament championship last week in Durham, N.C. The NCAA Tournament Selection Committee disagreed. The Yellow Jackets didn’t try to hide their disdain.

”I do not know what the narrative was. …I’ll just say it like that. I'm not in that room," Georgia Tech Danny Hall said earlier this week. ”But the fact that the ACC champion is not hosting, I just think it's ridiculous. I took the high road (Monday) on national TV, but they try to use the fact that it was our schedule almost like it was a fluke that we won the ACC championship.

“They'll use that narrative against us, but yet there were national seeds that were swept at home by people that we swept on the road in our league. In fact, Stanford was 7-2 against three NCAA teams out of the state of North Carolina, and we won the league, sweeping Stanford at Stanford, who hadn't been swept there in I don't know how long.

“So to try to use the schedule and kind of just continue to double down with guys that are journalists and write that that's the reason we didn't host, that’s just a joke. They have no idea how hard it is to win games, and I don't care what league you're playing in and you win the league, you have played great throughout the course of the entire season. So to answer that question, I know it's a long answer, but I think it's a joke.”

"We were definitely disappointed,” Georgia Tech pitcher Mason Patel said. “We thought we had a good regular season, a good year and a good resume to put ourselves in a hosting position, but that's not in our control.The only thing we can do is control what we can, and the message afterwards is we have all our goals right in front of us and what we still want to accomplish. We're grateful to still be playing and have this opportunity so it is what it is. At the end of the day, it's on us.”

Patel was asked if the team has any kind of underdog mentality going into this regional.

"Maybe a little bit, definitely a healthy chip on our shoulder, knowing that we felt like we were one of the best teams in the country from start to finish this year so far," Patel said. ”So yeah definitely a little extra motivation, but we're ready to show what we do and earn respect from everyone around the country."