We recently came across this great article from The Gotham Baseball Magazine where they mae up an All-Gotham team based on the student-athletes in the greater New York City area. The team is led by St. John’s pitcher Scott Barnes and two pitchers from Monmouth in Brad Brach and Ryan Buch. A couple of other notables are Hofstra third baseman Matt Prokopowicz and Cole White of Army. The full article is available here.

The Arizona State Sun Devils have been named the top team in the country by Kendall Rogers of Rivals.com. The Sun Devils return a veteran squad which made an appearance in the CWS before being knocked out by UC-Irvine. The Sun Devils will need a better pitching staff if they really expect to compete for the CWS title. The full article is available here.

Rivals writer Kendall Rogers continues his Top 25 countdown with Miami (FL) coming in at Number 2. Miami made the NCAA Tourney getting knocked out in the Columbia Missouri regional by Louisville on their way to the CWS. Miami returns a solid hitting team led by Yonder Alonso, Mark Sobolewski, and Blake Tekotte. They will need to become a better team on the mound to make their triumphant return to the CWS. The full article is available here.

FROM PRESS RELEASE
SAN DIEGO, Calif. - The University of San Diego baseball team has been ranked No. 5 in the Rivals.com preseason top-25 poll it was announced Monday morning. This marks the highest preseason ranking in the history of the program.

San Diego is coming off the heals of the best season in program history with a 43-18 record, the first 40-win season in the history of USD baseball. The Toreros won their third West Coast Conference championship, received a program-best No. 4 national ranking and a program-first No. 8 national seed in the NCAA Regionals. Read the rest of this entry »

We love how every organization puts out a Top 25 poll. The latest is the USA Today/ESPN Preseason Coaches poll  with Arizona State taking the top spot. North Carolina, South Carolina, Rice, and Arizona round out the Top 5. The USA Today poll makes more sense as FSU is ranked 12th and Baseball America has them unranked. The full USA Today poll is available here with a breakdown of each squad.

FROM PRESS RELEASE
DALLAS - The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association continues its tradition of NCAA polls with the inaugural NCBWA-D3baseball.com Preseason Division III Poll. Weekly polls will start on February 25 and continue through June 2, following the NCAA Division III Championship in Grand Chute, Wisconsin. Read the rest of this entry »

Perfect Game Crosschecker has put out their annual rankings of the Top 100 programs for the 2008 campaign. Leading the way is the Arizona Wildcats and chief rival Arizona State comes in as the runner up. The rest of the Top 5 is filled out by Texas, Miami (FL), and Vanderbilt. The full article is available here.

FROM PRESS RELEASE
DALLAS - The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association continues its tradition of NCAA Division I polls for the 11th year with its 2008 preseason predictions and weekly surveys. Weekly polls will continue from Feb. 25 through June 30 following the NCAA World Series in Omaha, Neb.

The poll voters come from 30 college baseball writers and related media persons from throughout the nation. After a preseason Top 35 listing, the remainder of the polls will feature a national Top 30. Read the rest of this entry »

We check in with Aaron Fitt over at B.A. tonight with a chat and a key piece of news out of the NCAA meetings in Nashville.

Aaron hosted his first chat of the year. Among the various topics discussed are the top five college prospects in the 2008 MLB draft: Pedro Alvarez of Vanderbilt, Aaron Crow of Missouri, Brian Matusz of San Diego, Justin Smoak of South Carolina and Brett Hunter of Pepperdine. Aaron says Alvarez is the class of the draft, featuring the top tools in the game. Aaron also discusses Texas’ reloading and the top three in the SEC (Ole Miss, South Carolina and Vanderbilt), among other issues.

Aaron also gives a recap of the failure of attempts to override the drastic revamp of many rules in NCAA baseball in a Blog Entry found here.

Kendall Rogers has started doing his Top 25 countdown. He checks in with the bottom five this week.

25. St. John’s
24. Texas AM
23. UC-Irvine
22. Louisville
21. Florida State

The College Baseball News has put out their 2008 Preseason Poll for Division 2. They have put the two time defending national champion Tampa in the top spot. They went 53-10 in 2007 and return a strong squad in their hunt for their third straight national championship. Columbus State, Florida Southern, Mesa State, and Abilene Christian round out the top 5. The full poll is available here.

The College Baseball News has also put out their 2008 Preseason Poll for Division 3. The publication puts Wooster (OH) in the top spot with Cortland State coming up in the second spot. The top five is filled out by Kean (NJ), Chapman (CA), and Emory (GA). The full poll is available here.

Our good friend Kendall Rogers of Rivals.com has started doing previews of conferences for the 2008 season.He is one of the top college baseball writers in the country with the depth of his knowledge about the players and coaches across the country. The previews are brief but informative especially the lower level conferences. Read the rest of this entry »

FROM PRESS RELEASE
TUCSON, Ariz. — The University of Arizona has been ranked No. 1 in Collegiate Baseball newspaper’s Fabulous 40 pre-season NCAA Division I poll.

The Wildcats have their strongest team since winning national championships in 1976, 1980 and 1986 as nine position player starters are back along with seven superb pitchers from a team which finished second in the Pac-10 Conference a year ago with a 42-17 overall record. Read the rest of this entry »

The Arizona State Sun Devil start off the season as #1 in the latest publication to release a Top 25… err… 30 list.

The release can be found here.

Baseball America published an interesting op-ed piece today, forecasting their predicted field for the 2008 College World Series. Obviously it’s too soon to tell who will be a legitimate contender, with almost 2 months remaining before the August 15 deadline for MLB organizations to sign would-be college prospects, and injuries, weather and dozens of other factors looming on the horizon. But all the same, it’s interesting to start thinking about it already as we watch the summer leagues take shape, and Aaron Fitt provides some interesting food for thought in the off-season. And no, as you near the end of the list, you’ll discover that I am not unbiased in my evaluation of this article…

The lucky 8:

Arizona State
Miami

Baylor

Michigan

Missouri

UCLA

Vanderbilt

Virginia

Full Article