Hultzen's 'Hoos were rewarded for a great run to Omaha last season and returning stars including Hultzen.
College baseball is the pro lacrosse of the collegiate sports landscape, but one of my favorites to attend with living within 15 minutes of Doug Kingsmore Stadium in Clemson. A couple posts I’ve seen around the blogososphere have alerted me to Collegiate Baseball’s preseason top 40 and the ACC is the top conference in regards to representation at the top with six teams in top 19 and no other conference having more than two(h/t Tigernet).
Here’s how they have it…
- 3. Virginia–Check out Streaking the Lawn’s coverage of their ranking here.
- 6. Georgia Tech
- 7. Florida State
- 12. Miami
- 13. North Carolina
- 16. Clemson–Shakin the Southland gives their take on the rankings.
- Others who received votes: N.C. State and Boston College.
Preseason polls are still preseason polls though–a team like Boston College came out of nowhere to make the NCAA Tournament last season. Virginia had a great season last year and are getting their props this season with a high ranking. The traditional powers of Georgia Tech, FSU, Miami, UNC, and Clemson get their regular spots in the polls. For a team I know a lot about with Clemson with living in the area and checking out their games, they return a number of great players in the lineup with their entire outfield back of Jeff Schaus, Kyle Parker, Wilson Boyd along with Brad Miller(who made team USA) and Chris Epps who both had outstanding seasons last year. Pitching will be the issue for the Tigers as they bring in a new pitching coach and lose some veteran/key pitchers to the bigs like Chris Dwyer and Graham Stoneburner. Georgia Tech returns ace righty Deck McGuire to a team that has had some great regular seasons of late, but Omaha has been elusive. FSU was hot down the stretch of the season last year, but were swept in a home super regional at the hands of Arkansas. Virginia and UNC both made runs to Omaha last season and hope to break the ACC’s long streak without an NCAA title this season.
I’m already excited just thinking about college baseball season–wait, we still have football too? Ah, well, I guess it can wait a little bit, but baseball season is right around the corner and if you are not interested in your college baseball squad–give them a try, it’s good stuff.
What do you think about the upcoming baseball season? Does your team have to make Omaha or bust? Will there be another Boston College this season(or is BC, BC)?
I know Clemson has 8 position players returning, but the Tigers lost a lot of pitching.
Virginia has practically its entire baseball personnel returning from last years excellent team so 2010 could be a banner year for the Cavaliers and the ACC in general. It’s about time!
cuorange,
The lineup should be excellent with everybody but Paulsen returning. The starting pitching is the biggest issue as they basically have an all-new weekend staff. Clemson was pretty inconsistent as it was last season with the staff even with all that talent. Will be interesting to see how it works out.
Wampum,
What will be interesting is if they can top last season as they made the CWS then, Wampum. Naturally, you would think that they will do that and even eclipse their season with everybody a year more experienced, but the ACC/NCAA Tourneys are tough formats to advance in especially if you have to travel instead of host again. But, the ‘Hoos more than deserve to be where they are…we’ll see if they can live up to it.
B – they also lost a recruit (Younginer to the Red Sox) and Mounce transferred to play football. Obviously, neither was established as a college pitcher but it’s two less arms that were counted on (at least to some extent). But to me perhaps the biggest loss is Kyle Bunn to Alabama.
http://cuorange.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/pitching-coach-kyle-bunn-headed-to-bama/