The College Baseball Week 10 Top 25 Explainer

Despite the fact that this past week in college baseball came with far less chaos than previous weeks, there was only one newcomer and one program to debut on this week’s update - the same amount as last week’s. This week’s newcomer is #25 UC Santa Barbara who knocked off #1 UCLA in their mid-week, ending UCLA’s 27-game win streak, one that was seven games short of breaking the NCAA record. NC State who was previously ranked #22 was the lone team to fall from the top 25, meanwhile, more teams than any other week have entered into the top 25 bubble conversation. That’s just goes to show the very small margin between the teams ranked roughly between 20 and 40, which makes for some exciting college baseball down the stretch as there are still a large number of teams looking to make a push towards hosting a regional in the tournament, while teams within the same tier at the moment could miss the tournament all together. Here is this week’s top 25 update:

As long as UCLA handled business over the weekend against Minnesota, their loss to UC Santa Barbara in the mid-week was not going to be any reason to drop them from the #1 spot that they’ve held all year. They remain undefeated in Big Ten play at 21-0, so it’s going to have to take a very convincing performance from one of the teams right behind them and a lousy performance from UCLA for them to hand over the keys to #1 given their extensive resume to this point.

#2-#4 is pretty much consensus throughout the industry, but there’s a few different ways you can order them. Texas comes in at #2 due to the fact I held them one spot above North Carolina last week despite their series loss to Texas A&M because I liked their resume a little better than North Carolina’s. With Texas taking down #23 Alabama over the weekend and #3 North Carolina beating #4 Georgia Tech, North Carolina had to jump Georgia Tech, but there was no reason for me to bump North Carolina over Texas. There’s certainly an argument for North Carolina given they had the more convincing weekend, but Texas’s resume is still a bit better than North Carolina’s for me, considering they have one series loss in the SEC to #8 Texas A&M on the road, while North Carolina has one series loss in the ACC, but it came at home to #12 Virginia.

Between #5 Georgia and #6 Oregon State, this was the rare case in which I dropped a team despite them winning their weekend. They were already so very close a week ago, but Georgia’s series win on the road at #22 Arkansas, including their 26-run performance on Sunday, was just a bit too much for me to leave them out of the top five after Oregon State’s weekend was reduced to just three games due to weather as they came out on the other side 2-1 against Cal State Fullerton.

With #16 USC who was previously ranked #7 going 0-4 on the week, which included a sweep at #15 Nebraska and a mid-week loss at Long Beach State, everyone behind them that won their weekend moved up. #7 Auburn went on the road and took two out of three from #21 Florida while #8 Texas A&M also went on the road and swept LSU. #9 Florida State climbed two spots as they also jumped #10 Coastal Carolina, one of three teams to hold their ranking this week. Coastal went 2-2 on the week, and if you’ve learned anything from my ranking of Southern Miss in recent weeks, mid-majors typically have to go 3-1 on the week rather than 2-2, regardless of what happens over the weekend. Coastal won their series over Georgia State, a series they should have swept, and also lost their mid-week to Wake Forest.

#11 Oregon jumped two spots over #12 Virginia in the same manner Florida State jumped Coastal, as Oregon put the hammer on Illinois over the weekend. Virginia went 2-2 on the week with a series win at home over Clemson and a loss to VCU in the mid-week, so while a power-4 program that wins their weekend typically moves up despite going 2-2 on the week, they did struggle with a Clemson team they probably should have swept considering Clemson’s trajectory. There just wasn’t enough in Virginia’s week to feel confident about giving them a bump up. #13 West Virginia and #14 Mississippi State were two more teams that handled their business over the weekend and jumped one spot due to USC’s fall.

USC’s fall stopped at #16 as Nebraska climbed to #15 after previously being ranked #21. Regardless of whether it comes at home or on the road, when a top 25 team sweeps another ranked team within roughly 15 spots of them, that’s going to warrant that team jumping the team they swept. A series sweep of a top 25 opponent is typically going to earn a seven to eight spot jump, or fall for the team that was swept, and there isn’t much reason not to give the team that swept the head-to-head nod. With the way the board shook out, USC drops nine spots to #16 while Nebraska climbs six spots to #15.

With their weekend sweep of Missouri, #17 Oklahoma separated itself a bit from the SEC group of #21 Florida, #22 Arkansas, and #23 Alabama that just can’t seem to figure out how to put together a string of successful weeks. Florida, Arkansas, and Alabama were all ranked alongside each other a week ago, and remain that way as Florida dropped their home series to Auburn and lost their mid-week to Bethune Cookman, Arkansas dropped their home series to Georgia, and Alabama went on the road and dropped their series to Texas. There wasn’t much of anything in any of their performances that warranted any shuffling between the three. With those three SEC teams falling, #18 Southern Miss was able to jump two spots while #19 Ole Miss jumped four spots. Ole Miss did beat Southern Miss in the mid-week, but they are now even at 1-1 in their match-ups this year, and Southern Miss swept a tough Texas State team, so while Ole Miss went on the road and took two of three from Tennessee, there wasn’t quite enough there for Ole Miss to jump Southern Miss. With five wins on the week and a sweep of Duke, #20 Boston College was another team that benefited from the three SEC teams falling as they climbed from #24 to #20.

Rounding out the final two spots, #24 Kansas had a solid week after making their top 25 debut, taking down Oklahoma State on the road and managing to climb a spot after previously #22 ranked NC State fell off the top 25 with a series loss to Wake Forest in which they gave up 45 runs. #25 UC Santa Barbara was mentioned at the beginning of this article as the lone team to debut on this week’s update as they took down UCLA in their mid-week and went on the road and took two of three from UC Irvine to give them the lead in the Big West. Teams that were either considered for a top 25 spot and/or entered the bubble conversation include Miami, Arizona State, Cincinnati, Michigan, Purdue, Vanderbilt, California Baptist, Jacksonville State, Liberty, and Bethune-Cookman.