BATON ROUGE — Defending national champion LSU was ranked No. 3 in the 2001 Collegiate Baseball magazine preseason Top 40 poll released Thursday.
The Tigers, who return four starting position players and seven pitchers from their 2000 NCAA championship club, received 473 points in the poll to finish third behind No. 1 Georgia Tech (478 points) and No. 2 Southern California (477 points). Nebraska is No. 4 in the 2001 rankings, followed by Clemson, Arizona State, Rice, Florida State, Miami (Fla.) and South Carolina.
Other Southeastern Conference teams appearing in the poll include No. 13 Florida, No. 16 Georgia, No. 18 Auburn, No. 21 Mississippi State, No. 24 Alabama and No. 25 Tennessee.
LSU has two representatives on the 2001 Collegiate Baseball pre-season all-American team. Second baseman Mike Fontenot and outfielder Todd Linden were named as second-team selections.
Fontenot, a sophomore from Slidell, La., was voted the 2000 National Freshman of the Year as he batted .353 (103-for-292) with 13 doubles, three triples, 17 home runs and 64 RBI. He scored 93 runs, the second-highest total in LSU history, and his 17 homers established an LSU freshman record.
Linden, a junior from Seattle, Wash., is transferring to LSU in January from the University of Washington. He hit .390 last season for the Huskies with six homers and 49 RBI.
LSU will play 23 games against teams ranked in the Collegiate Baseball pre-season Top 40. The Tigers will face Arizona State, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Auburn, Mississippi State and Alabama in three-games series, and LSU will meet No. 33 Tulane in two single games.
The Tigers begin the 2001 season on Feb. 9 against Kansas State in the first game of a three-game weekend series in Alex Box Stadium.
The 2001 season marks the 18th and final year for head coach Skip Bertman at the helm of the LSU program. Bertman, who last summer announced he would retire at the end of this season, has an 826-308-2 record. He has directed the Tigers to five NCAA championships, 11 College World Series appearances, seven Southeastern Conference titles, six SEC Tournament crowns and nine 50-win seasons.