It took a while, but the Troy baseball team finally cracked into one of the major national polls this week. Baseball America had Troy as the No. 21 team in their latest poll. I traded e-mails with Aaron Fitt of Baseball America yesterday and he confirmed that it is the first time Troy has ever been nationally-ranked by the publication.Here is a rundown of the BA Top 25 this week.
The other major polls continue to look the other way where Troy is concerned. Collegiate Baseball ranks the top 30 teams, and does not list an "others receiving votes" list.
The USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll does list the others receiving votes. Troy is 33rd in that poll this week.
The National Collegiate Baseball Writers (NCBWA) Poll, of which I am a voting member, lists the others who receive votes, but not how many votes they receive. They just list them alphabetically. Troy has been receiving votes for a while, but there is no way to know how many others besides yours truly has been voting for the Trojans.
There is one other poll, which is published by PerfectGame.org, which is a subscription site. That site is edited by Kendall Rogers, who covered college baseball for Yahoo! before taking his new gig. The folks at PG don't have Troy in their top 25 this week, but have a feature about the Trojans being one of several teams on the brink of cracking the rankings.
One of my favorite web sites for college baseball is SEBaseball.com. Publisher Mark Etheridge has his regional projections up for this week as well as a breakdown of potential seeding. He has Troy as a potential No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. In his regional projections, however, he has Southern Miss as a No. 1 and host while Troy is a No. 2 in the Gainesville Regional.
Obviously, there is still a lot of baseball to be played, and polls and projections will change dramatically over the next two months. If the Trojans continue to pitch and play defense they way they have, the polls and regional seeding will take care of themselves.
The Trojans will take their No. 21 ranking on the road tonight to face Auburn. It is just the third road game of the year for Troy, and the team is still looking for that first road win. Following the Auburn game, the Trojans will travel to face Arkansas State in Sun Belt play this weekend.
The links above will take you to see the various polls this week. Below is a look at how I voted in the NCBWA poll. Hopefully I will see a lot of Trojans at the park tonight over in Auburn.
| Rank | Team | Record |
| 1 | Virginia | 24-2 |
| 2 | Vanderbilt | 22-3 |
| 3 | Florida | 21-4 |
| 4 | South Carolina | 18-5 |
| 5 | Texas A&M | 19-5 |
| 6 | Oklahoma | 19-6 |
| 7 | Arizona State | 18-6 |
| 8 | Florida State | 18-6 |
| 9 | Fresno State | 18-2 |
| 10 | Troy | 19-4 |
| 11 | Texas | 17-7 |
| 12 | Arizona | 17-7 |
| 13 | Arkansas | 18-6 |
| 14 | North Carolina | 23-3 |
| 15 | Georgia Tech | 21-4 |
| 16 | LSU | 17-7 |
| 17 | Rice | 16-11 |
| 18 | UCF | 18-6 |
| 19 | Southern Mississippi | 18-5 |
| 20 | Auburn | 14-10 |
| 21 | Stetson | 20-5 |
| 22 | New Mexico State | 19-5 |
| 23 | Mississippi | 18-7 |
| 24 | TCU | 15-8 |
| 25 | Charlotte | 19-6 |
| 26 | Oklahoma State | 18-6 |
| 27 | East Carolina | 18-5 |
| 28 | Tulane | 18-6 |
| 29 | UC Irvine | 14-6 |
| 30 | California | 16-5 |
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