After a grueling 2-1 series win against the University of South Florida Bulls team plus a midweek win versus Lindenwood-Belleville, the Fighting Illini (17-5-1) find themselves slowly moving up in the polls… again. In three of the five major national polls, they moved up. Baseball America kept them at #25 where they were last week. Only Collegiate Baseball took them down a notch from #18 to #22.
The Illini’s highest ranking is D1Baseball.com’s #17 spot. That’s the highest that Illinois has been since the dark ages… okay, 1990 really.
Here is the full list of polls and where Illinois is placed:
|
National Poll |
Illinois’ Ranking |
Previous Ranking |
|
NCBWA |
26th |
27th |
|
D1Baseball.com |
17th |
18th |
|
Collegiate Baseball |
22nd |
18th |
|
Baseball America |
25th |
25th |
|
USA Today Coaches’ Poll |
22nd |
24th |
The Big Ten has other representatives in the polling. D1Baseball ranks Maryland at #11 and Indiana at #19. Both of those teams had conference games last weekend, by the way. You can see the conference standings here. Long story short: Maryland and Nebraska are off to 3-0 starts and Michigan and Northwestern are both 0-3.
Illinois begins their Big Ten season this weekend at East Lansing against Michigan State.