BATON ROUGE — LSU will enter the 2003 baseball season ranked in the top 10 of all three major polls, as the Fighting Tigers are ranked seventh in the ESPN/USA Today Sports Weekly poll that was released Thursday.
The Tigers are ranked sixth by Collegiate Baseball newspaper and ninth by Baseball America magazine in their preseason polls.
The ESPN/USA Today poll is selected by 41 Division I baseball coaches throughout the country representing the American Baseball Coaches Association. The winner of the College World Series in June will be presented with the Louisville Slugger award as the poll’s national champion following the title game at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha.
LSU completed the 2002 season ranked 11th in all three polls with a 44-22 overall record. The Tigers reached the NCAA super regionals for the fourth consecutive year, leaving LSU as one of only six schools, along with Clemson, Florida State, Miami, USC and Stanford, as the only teams to reach the final 16 in every season since the current format began in 1999.
Defending national champion Texas was voted to the top spot in the coaches’ poll, giving the Longhorns the number one nod in two of the three preseason polls, along with Collegiate Baseball. Georgia Tech, which was voted first in the Baseball America preseason poll, is second, followed by fellow Atlantic Coast Conference power Florida State.
Rice, who swept LSU in last year’s super regional at Houston, is fourth, followed by Pacific-10 powers Stanford and USC. Defending SEC champion and national runner-up South Carolina is just behind LSU at eighth, with Arizona State and Cal State Fullerton rounding out the top 10.
SEC West division rivals, Mississippi State and Auburn, are ranked 17th and 21st, respectively, while two LSU non-conference opponents are also in the poll, with Conference USA champion Houston at 11th and Long Beach State of the Big West in the 16th spot.
The Tigers host the Cougars at Alex Box Stadium February 21-23 before visiting the 49ers at Blair Field February 28-March 2, the Tigers’ first visit to California in 110 years of baseball. LSU faces Mississippi State in Starkville May 2-4 before returning home to host Auburn in the final home series of the season May 9-11.
Seven other SEC teams, along with Louisiana schools Louisiana-Lafayette, New Orleans and Tulane, received votes in the poll.
LSU begins the 2003 season with the annual Alumni Game at 4 p.m. on Saturday, February 1, and then opens the regular season February 7-9 with a three-game series at home against Southland Conference co-champion Northwestern State.