BATON ROUGE – Following a pair of top-10 team finishes at the NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships a season ago, the Tigers and Lady Tigers will kick off the 2016 campaign ranked among the Top 15 teams nationally after the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association released its preseason rankings Wednesday.
The Lady Tigers open the season ranked No. 12 nationally in the women’s rankings after tying for ninth place at the NCAA Indoor Championships a year ago, while the Tigers enter the campaign ranked No. 14 nationally in the men’s rankings after tying for seventh place in the final team standings last March.
After featuring a youthful squad in 2015, the Lady Tigers have experience on their side in 2016 as they are excited to return eight All-American athletes between the indoor and outdoor seasons last year.
Among those are two athletes who picked up All-America honors at the NCAA Indoor Championships when junior Nataliyah Friar was recognized as the NCAA Indoor Bronze Medalist in the long jump in her first career All-American performance and sophomore Mikiah Brisco sprinted to a fifth-place finish nationally in the 60-meter dash in her NCAA Championships debut.
Senior sprinter and hurdler Chanice Chase, junior sprinters Rushell Harvey and Jada Martin, sophomore hurdler Daeshon Gordon and sophomore sprinter Aleia Hobbs are returning outdoor All-Americans who will look to carry their form indoors and help the Lady Tigers compete for honors at the SEC and NCAA championships.
Juniors Tremayne Acy and Jordan Moore are among the top returning Tigers from a year ago as both look to challenge for indoor All-America honors for the first time in their careers. Acy emerged as one of the NCAA’s leading 200-meter sprinters with a fourth-place finish nationally at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, while Moore was an NCAA semifinalist in the 110-meter hurdles last outdoor season.
The Tigers also return two members of their NCAA-title-winning 4×400-meter relay team from the 2015 outdoor season as seniors Fitzroy Dunkley and Cyril Grayson will surely be part of a foursome that contends for a NCAA Indoor title in March. With the addition of Ohio State transfer LaMar Bruton and Florida State transfer Michael Cherry in the offseason, the Tigers will no doubt feature one of the nation’s elite relay teams during the 2016 season. Bruton has run 45.67 indoors and Cherry has run 46.31 indoors in the 400 meters in their previous stops.
LSU’s 2016 indoor season gets underway on Friday when the teams play host to the Purple Tiger Invitational at the Carl Maddox Field House. They will be at home in each of the first two weeks of the regular season as they also play host to the Bayou Bengal Invitational on Saturday, Jan. 16, in Baton Rouge.
USTFCCCA 2016 Preseason Indoor Rankings
Men
Team (Points)
1. Florida (141.21)
2. Texas (125.39)
3. Oregon (98.93)
4. Virginia Tech (96.00)
5. Alabama (78.77)
6. Georgia (74.23)
7. TCU (71.28)
8. Washington (71.27)
9. Texas A&M (70.07)
10. Arkansas (69.75)
11. Nebraska (69.17)
12. Colorado (66.50)
13. Stanford (62.85)
14. LSU (58.75)
15. Tennessee (57.68)
16. Oklahoma State (57.27)
17. Texas Tech (54.16)
18. Virginia (46.12)
19. South Carolina (45.48)
20. Kansas State (43.19)
21. Penn State (38.72)
22. Georgetown (38.07)
23. Tulsa (36.78)
24. Purdue (36.47)
25. Houston (32.34)
Women
Team (Points)
1. Arkansas (181.80)
2. Georgia (171.70)
3. Texas (122.57)
4. Kansas State (120.25)
5. Oregon (107.29)
6. Florida (98.79)
7. Southern California (93.95)
8. Kentucky (89.65)
9. Wisconsin (71.70)
10. Georgetown (70.91)
11. Baylor (70.82)
12. LSU (66.76)
13. Stanford (64.11)
14. Michigan (58.47)
15. NC State (56.42)
16. Duke (51.76)
17. Miami, Fla. (51.19)
18. Washington (48.83)
19. Michigan State (45.47)
20. Notre Dame (45.06)
21. Texas A&M (44.41)
22. Clemson (42.22)
23. Kent State (41.55)
24. Boston College (39.78)
25. Ole Miss (34.98)