BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s tennis team moved up three spots to No. 12 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association poll released Tuesday.
The Tigers (18-7, 5-6 SEC) have won their last five matches. They begin play Thursday at the SEC Tournament in Athens, Ga. with a first round match against Auburn.
LSU has gained ground in the national polls for last three weeks. Last week they defeated then-No. 18 Tulane and Arkansas to close out their regular season.
Competition at the SEC tournament will be among the best teams in the nation as seven league teams are ranked in the top 20 in the nation this week. First-seed Ole Miss is ranked third, Florida is fifth and Georgia is ninth. Kentucky is No. 11 and South Carolina and Mississippi State are ranked 18th and 20th, respectively.
Three more teams–Tennessee, Auburn and Vanderbilt, were in the top-40.
LSU had another strong showing in the individual polls released this week. Ken Skupski and Mark Growcott were ranked seventh in the doubles poll. The two finished with the best conference record of any No. 1 doubles team in the SEC at 9-2. Colt Gaston and Danny Bryan were ranked 53rd.
In the singles poll, Skupski was ranked No. 30 and Growcott was No. 81.
The top 16 teams in the nation will be selected to host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. LSU has been ranked among that group for the past three weeks.