There are some definite truths at play with Ole Miss baseball.

Arizona routed the Rebels, 16-3, on Sunday to advance to the College World Series, leaving Ole Miss at 45 wins and one victory shy of Omaha for the second straight postseason.

The Wildcats pounded out 20 hits and scored in four of the first five innings including a seven-run disaster in the fourth that essentially ended the game. Meanwhile, Ole Miss followed up a great offensive Saturday with only three hits and a sacrifice fly through seven innings, struggling to barrel up the Arizona bullpen.

It makes Ole Miss 1-5 in super regional game threes under Mike Bianco and 7-13 in all super regional games. The Rebels since 2005 are 1-8 in games to advance to the College World Series.

“I don’t know… there’s nothing specific to all of them,” Bianco said. “It’s not a secret we’ve struggled in those. We’ve been in some though. We’ve been in seven supers in the last 15 or so years. That’s one or so every two years, and we’ll keep banging on the door until we get through again.”

It ends a season that, in a vacuum, was one of Bianco’s best coaching jobs in relation to handling adversity, managing people and emotions and guiding a flawed but resilient team to the second week of June. He bucked convention and rolled more dice than usual.

Injuries to Gunnar Hoglund, Tim Elko, Jerrion Ealy and Max Cioffi drastically and collectively altered Ole Miss’ season. In response to those setbacks, Doug Nikhazy carried the Rebels through the rubble and is arguably the best starting pitcher in school history. That’s he’s the best big-game pitcher may not even be debatable.

Elko hit seven home runs with a torn ACL and personified the team’s heart and effort while grabbing a prominent place in the program’s fabric for a long time to come. It seems unfair the final glimpse of Elko this season is of him tearing up while hugging teammates.

Those are all facts, truths that require little context and show a successful season while just not being good enough to continue the summer run.

The pitching staff didn’t have enough depth and the offense was explosive but inconsistent — good at the big inning but scuffling in recent weeks at piling up quality at-bats and consistent pressure.

That the Rebels worked their way to 21 SEC wins including Hoover and a regional championship is an accomplishment considering the personnel losses and midseason slump that resulted in four straight losing series.

“A lot of high expectations going in, and this team won 45 games and one game from getting to the College world Series, 12th national seed,” Bianco said. “This team had a terrific year. We had a bad day but a terrific year. What this team went through and the adversity, and we kept our heads above water. This team did some things no one expected.”

But some other truths are a battle of context and evidence in all directions of where the program is as Bianco finishes his 20th season, not counting COVID-shortened 2020.

That this iteration of the Rebels is the latest poster child of postseason failure is likely not fair, but it’s the perception/reality argument of a large sample size when it comes to regular season consistency falling short of Nebraska.

Ole Miss wins a lot of games, sells out its stadium, is a regular top-three leader in attendance, is one of the few programs to make money on the sport and has hosted a regional in four of the last five postseasons.

It’s one of the most consistent programs in the country and a model for how to promote and market while avoiding season lulls that infect nearly every program nationally. Bianco is responsible for all but one of the 40-win seasons in school history.

It’s also 1-for-20 in College World Series appearances under Bianco despite hosting regionals 10 times and super regionals three times during that span. The Rebels have never won a road regional and have only played a game in a road regional to advance to a super regional in one season -- losing two straight to TCU in College Station in 2012.

Bianco is obviously not getting fired, but I also don’t know that this season, despite it’s success in a vacuum, gains him any capital either.

The big picture grows by the year, and the fanbase's collection opinion of Bianco sometimes resembles a married couple that is trying to work out some issues. Things may be calm for a while and day-to-day successful, but eventually they start arguing about something that happened two years prior while folding towels.

That’s why until LSU fills its head coaching job, a lot of Ole Miss eyes are pointed toward Baton Rouge. Bianco’s name has been mentioned as a candidate for more than a week, and some sources believe he’s the frontrunner to receive an offer to return to his alma mater.

LSU’s search has been a convoluted power struggle that would make Huey Long uncomfortable, but as Kevin O’Sullivan and Pat Casey have come and gone from the forefront, Bianco’s name has remained, lifted up by a group of stakeholders that includes former athletics director and baseball caching legend Skip Bertman.

Whether Bianco would accept that offer, I have no idea, but it makes for a potentially uncertain week as the season ends. Adding to the layers, Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter didn’t extend Bianco’s contract two years ago when he fell one game short of Omaha.

Last year, during an impressive start to the schedule, before the season came to a halt because of COVID, Carter rolled Bianco over but altered his contract, removing most of the escalators and putting emphasis on the College World Series. Bianco’s salary of approximately $1.2 million is top-10 nationally.

It’s an awkward world when maybe Bianco’s best coaching job is accompanied by the subject of longterm job stability, but odd juxtapositions have become staples of this era.

Bianco can choose to remain Ole Miss’ coach for a 22nd season. But, beyond that, there are things left to be determined.

Bianco said he will start player exit meetings as early as Monday, and assistant coaches will soon get back out on the road recruiting, something that hasn’t been the case for more than a year.

He spoke of business as usual. Maybe that’s true and maybe some other meetings affect the future of the program. But either way, the usual is the difficult spot for Ole Miss baseball.

The program is nationally competitive, respected, successful and stable. But some would argue it’s also stale because of how it routinely ends.

Both sides of the debate got plenty of ammunition with this season. And, as always, both sides are plenty ready to fire away.