DALLAS – The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association continued its tradition of NCAA Division I polls for the 18th year with its 2013 weekly surveys. This season’s polls have been circulated from Feb. 18-June 26 following the 68th annual NCAA World Series in Omaha, Neb., as UCLA captured its first NCAA baseball title.
This is the final poll of the 2014 season, and Vanderbilt captured its first NCAA men’s championship in history by edging Virginia 2-1 in games at the best-of-3 round June 23-25 in Omaha. It ended a two-year reign by Pac-12 Conference powers Arizona and UCLA, and VU became the fourth SEC member in history to take the crown along with LSU, South Carolina and Georgia.
Virginia led the NCBWA polls for a season-high eight weeks while Vandy achieved its first-ever No. 1 ranking by the group. Louisiana-Lafayette was ranked No. 1 on May 26 and June 3 for the initial time in school history. Oregon State (four weeks – Feb. 17, May 5-12-19), Florida State (March 17), South Carolina (March 10), and Cal State Fullerton (preseason No. 1) were prior top vote recipients for the 18 surveys in 2014. This tops last season’s five total teams at No. 1 during the January-June NCBWA compilations with seven different top-ranked schools holding that distinction.
The poll voters come from 44 college baseball writers and related media persons from throughout the nation. The final poll has representation by 12 different conferences among the 302 baseball-playing schools in the 2014 NCAA Division I ranks, and 19 circuits were ranked in at least one ’14 NCBWA Top 30/35.
The preseason 2015 NCBWA DI Top 35 poll will be released in January 2015 after the 17th annual pre-’15 NCBWA All-America team is denoted in December 2014.
Rank School Conference Overall Record Previous Rank
1 Vanderbilt Southeastern 51-21 6
2 Virginia Atlantic Coast 53-16 2
3 Texas Big 12 46-21 9
4 Ole Miss SEC 48-21 8
5 TCU Big 12 48-18 7
6 Louisville American Athletic 50-17 4
7 UC Irvine Big West 41-25 15
8 Texas Tech Big 12 45-21 10
9 Louisiana-Lafayette Sun Belt 58-10 1
10 Oklahoma State Big 12 48-18 3
11 Houston American 48-18 5
12 Pepperdine West Coast 43-18 11
13 Stanford Pac-12 35-26 17
14 Oregon State Pac-12 45-14 12
15 LSU SEC 46-16-1 13
16 Maryland ACC 40-23 20
17 College of Charleston Colonial 44-19 16
18 Cal Poly Big West 47-12 14
19 Kennesaw State Atlantic Sun 40-24 21
20 Indiana Big Ten 44-15 19
21 Florida State ACC 43-17 18
22 Miami (Fla.) ACC 44-19 22
23 South Carolina SEC 44-18 23
24 Rice Conference USA 42-20 25
25 Florida SEC 40-23 24
26 Washington Pac-12 41-17-1 26
27 Oregon Pac-12 44-20 27
28 Mississippi State SEC 39-24 28
29 Alabama SEC 37-24 29
30 Nebraska Big Ten 41-21 30
Others receiving votes (listed alphabetically): Arkansas (40-25), Cal State Fullerton (34-24), Clemson (36-25), Dallas Baptist (40-21), Jackson State (32-25), Kentucky (37-25), Liberty (41-18), Long Beach State (34-26), Sam Houston State (43-19), San Diego State (42-21), Texas A&M (36-26), UCF (36-23), UNLV (36-25).
Dropped Out: None.
By conference: SEC 7, ACC 4, Big 12 4, Pac-12 4, American 2, Big Ten 2, BWC 2, A-Sun 1, CAA 1, C-USA 1, SBC 1, WCC 1.
