Huskers reside in final college baseball top 20

Thursday, July 1, 2021

DALLAS - The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association continues its tradition of NCAA Division I polls for the 24th year with its 2021 weekly surveys, and NCAA champion Mississippi State made its first No. 1 ranking count in the final Top 30 survey.

The Bulldogs won their first NCAA team championship in any sport in more than 135 years of intercollegiate competition and kept the Southeastern Conference’s streak of No. 1 rankings – preseason Florida, Arkansas, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt – intact for the full campaign. This is the first time in NCBWA poll annals that one circuit had a No. 1 team in all Top 30 and 35 rankings.

All 16 teams in the NCAA Super Regionals also were among the Top 20, and some notable jumps in the ratings appear in this week’s compilations.

Some notable changes from the previous June 8 NCBWA survey in the standings are Mississippi State from No. 8 to No. 1 (State was preseason 7), Vanderbilt No. 2 from 3 (preseason 3), NC State No. 3 from 12 (preseason 11), Stanford No. 5 from 9 (preseason received votes), Virginia No. 6 from 14 (preseason 15), and UCLA from No. 24 to 19 (preseason 2).

There have been 14 conferences (10 in the final poll) represented in all the standings of 2021, and there were 15 different conferences included in the COVID-19 abbreviated NCBWA polls in 2020. In 2020, the writers predicted that eventual NCAA winner Vanderbilt would be No. 1 in the preseason rankings.

The 2021 poll voters come from among 33 college baseball writers and related media persons from throughout the nation. The ’21 season features 302 NCAA Division I baseball-playing schools, and for more information or to join the NCBWA please go to www.ncbwa.com.

Rk. School Conference Record Pvs.

1 Mississippi State SEC 50-18 8

2 Vanderbilt SEC 49-18 3

3 NC State ACC 37-19 12

4 Texas Big 12 50-17 2

5 Stanford Pac-12 39-17 9

6 Virginia ACC 36-27 14

7. Arizona Pac-12 45-18 5

8. Tennessee SEC 50-18 4

9. Arkansas SEC 50-13 1

10. Notre Dame ACC 34-13 7

11. Ole Miss SEC 45-22 11

12. LSU SEC 38-25 15

13. East Carolina American Athletic 44-17 10

14. Dallas Baptist Missouri Valley 41-18 13

15. Texas Tech Big 12 39-17 6

16. USF American Athletic 31-30 16

17. Old Dominion Conference USA 44-16 17

18. Oregon Pac-12 39-16 20

19. UCLA Pac-12 37-20 24

20. Nebraska Big Ten 34-14 18

21. UC Irvine Big West 43-18 19

22. Louisiana Tech Conference USA 42-20 21

23. Florida SEC 38-22 25

24. TCU Big 12 41-19 22

25. Southern Miss Conference USA 40-21 23

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