AUSTIN (KXAN) — This late in the season, polls aren’t so much about how a specific team performs as it is about how teams around them in the rankings do, and that certainly was the case when the latest D1Baseball.com rankings came out Monday.
Arkansas jumped four spots to No. 7 after sweeping Texas, but that didn’t convince the 4-person voting panel to move the Longhorns out of the top spot because of how the teams directly behind them did. Louisiana State went 2-2 last week, losing a series to Texas A&M, and dropped one spot to No. 3.
- Texas in the national baseball rankings
- D1Baseball.com: No. 1
- Baseball America: No. 2, Georgia moves to No. 1
- USA Today coaches poll: No. 1
- RPI: No. 2
Clemson went 1-2 and lost a series to Florida State and tumbled to No. 9. The Seminoles moved to No. 2 with North Carolina and Oregon rounding out the top five.
“UT’s consistency over the first 11 weeks of the season earned it a pass for a rough Week 12 on the road, particularly since the two teams right behind Texas in last week’s rankings both lost their series,” the D1Baseball.com staff said, defending its decision.
It was the first series loss for the Longhorns, and they had a commanding 5-game lead over the second-place Razorbacks in the Southeastern Conference standings going into the weekend. The lead is now two games with two weekends remaining.
Texas remained No. 2 in the RPI behind Georgia, which is the new No. 1 in the Baseball America Top 25. The Longhorns dropped to No. 2 in those rankings but remained at the top of the USA Today coaches poll.
The Longhorns face Lamar at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, in their final midweek game of the regular season. Texas hosts Florida in an SEC series beginning Friday and then closes the regular season at Oklahoma on May 15-17. The 16-team single-elimination SEC tournament is set for May 20-25 in Hoover, Alabama.
