BATON ROUGE — LSU is ranked No. 7 in the 2002 Baseball America magazine pre-season Top 25 poll released Thursday.
The Tigers, who return five starting position players and seven pitchers from their 2001 SEC Western Division championship club, are ranked behind No. 1 Stanford, Clemson, Miami (Fla.), Southern California, Notre Dame and Florida State. Rounding out the Top 10 are No. 8 Nebraska, Texas and Tulane.
Other Southeastern Conference teams appearing in the poll include No. 14 South Carolina, No. 17 Mississippi State and No. 20 Ole Miss. LSU will play a total of 11 games against teams ranked by Baseball America. The Tigers face Tulane in Baton Rouge on March 5 and in Metairie (at Zephyr Field) on April 9. LSU plays three-game SEC series at South Carolina (April 19-21), versus Mississippi State (March 29-31) and at Ole Miss (March 22-24).
LSU was ranked No. 5 in the 2002 Collegiate Baseball magazine poll released last month.
The Tigers begin the 2002 regular season on Friday, Feb. 8, against Birmingham Southern in the first game of a three-game weekend series in Alex Box Stadium.
The 2002 campaign marks the LSU head coaching debut of Smoke Laval, a former LSU assistant coach and the head coach at Louisiana-Monroe from 1994-2000. Laval replaces Skip Bertman, who in 18 seasons guided the Tigers to five NCAA titles and 11 appearances in the College World Series in Omaha, Neb. While working with Bertman for 10 seasons as an assistant coach (1984-93), Laval helped lead LSU to two national championships (1991, 1993), six College World Series appearances and five Southeastern Conference titles.
2002 Baseball America Pre-Season Top 25
(2001 record in parentheses)
1. Stanford (51-17)
2. Clemson (41-22)
3. Miami, Fla. (53-12)
4. Southern California (45-19)
5. Notre Dame (49-13)
6. Florida State (47-19)
7. LSU (44-22-1)
8. Nebraska (50-16)
9. Texas (36-26)
10. Tulane (56-13)
11. Rice (47-20)
12. Wichita State (42-24)
13. Georgia Tech (41-20)
14. South Carolina (49-20)
15. Cal State Fullerton (48-18)
16. Baylor (37-24)
17. Mississippi State (39-24)
18. Arizona State (37-20)
19. North Carolina (31-26)
20. Ole Miss (39-23)
21. Wake Forest (44-18)
22. Cal State Northridge (34-22)
23. Oklahoma State (42-22)
24. Washington (29-23)
25. Rutgers (42-17)