The staff at Baseball America seem to lean toward the Southeast when compiling their weekly rankings of top college teams. Numbers 1 to 9 are all SE teams, three with three losses, including top-ranked Virginia (12-3) and number 2 Texas (13-3), four with two losses, and two with one loss. Perfection was only good enough to earn Arizona State (15-0) a 10th place ranking. TENTH PLACE!
UCLA (13-0) is ranked 12th, finally making it past Rice (10-7), at 14th place. Fans of two other Pac-10 teams, Oregon State (10-3) and Washington State (10-3), wonder what they have to do to get past teams like Rice (10-7) and UC Irvine (10-6), whose rankings seem to be based on historical success rather than wins this season.
The Baseball Writers poll ranked Arizona State 2nd, UCLA 13th, and Oregon State 15th, with the usual suspects occupying the other top 30 places. Washington State remains unranked. West coast teams have won three out of the last four NCAA Baseball Championships, 32 of 63 all-time, but they still haven't won the hearts of the pollsters.