College Baseball Weekly

  Fresh off their AAC Conference tournament win and NCAA tournament appearance, the Tulane Green Waves are off to a 7-1 start. Recently they completed a home stand and now they will take their first official road trip of the season: three games against Pepperdine and one game against Long Beach State before returning to New Orleans to host North Dakota State. Later in the year Tulane will play USM, ECU, UTSA and USF all on the road. This will be the tough part of the schedule but will prepare the Green Wave for the post season.  Coach Ulhman is pleased with his teams effort thus far in the season. In a time when so many kids hit the transfer portal, it's refreshing to see a team with returning contributors.  Below listen to the Interview with head coach Jay Uhlman 

  College Baseball Weekly has recently decided to do a top 25 poll  1 Texas A&M  2 Tennessee  3 LSU   4 Arkansas  5 Florida   6 Florida State   7 Georgia   8 North Carolina  9 Oregon   10 Oregon State  11 Texas  12 Vanderbilt   13 Mississippi State   14 Dallas Baptist   15 TCU  16 Southern Miss  17 Arizona State  18 Stanford  19 Troy  20 Ole Miss  21 Wake Forest  22 Illinois  23 Houston  24 Duke  25 Purdue

 The first weekend in college baseball had some interesting match ups. So who was impressive? First, I'll talk about the teams that stayed undefeated, then the teams who had impressive weekends both at home and on the road. Many teams excelled this weekend but I'll only name a few in this article.  Impressive Undefeated Teams Michigan   went 4-0 in   the   Puerto Rico Challenge this Weekend defeating 4 teams from 4 different conferences. Arizona State was in a dog fight this past weekend vs Ohio State; every game in the series was competitive. ASU managed to go 3-0 and get the sweep. Teams that won the series on the road Illinois (2-1) won 2 out of 3 vs Abilene Christian at Whataburger field in Corpus Christi. Next week the Illini will travel to San Marcos to take on a tough Texas State team. Purdue (4-0) won four straight in Texas vs Stephen F Austin. Next week they play Niagara in North Carolina. Stanford (4-0) The cardinals swept Cal State Fullerton in their...

  San Jose State had a tough task opening weekend going on the road to face Louisiana of the Sun Belt Conference. Louisiana is a tough ball club with a beautiful stadium. Sometimes 4 maybe even 5 teams from the Sunbelt get in to the NCAA tournament each year. The Spartans winning two out of three on the road opening weekend is exactly what they needed for momentum heading into the rest of the 2025 slate. This week SJSU will host Utah Valley in a 4 game series. The next road trip will be at San Diego State, before then they will host BIG 12 Utah and Bay area foes Santa Clara and San Francisco.  

         Justin Haire returns home to lead the Ohio State Buckeye baseball program. The Hamilton Badin alum who had a successful stint at Campbell University is ready to build this program. The Buckeyes open at Arizona State, and in week 2 they will travel to Jacksonville to play a weekend full of NCAA tournament teams, starting with NC State on Friday, Saturday Coastal Carolina and Sunday Alabama. The following weekend Auburn, Baylor and Oregon State. I asked Haire about the schedule and it sounds like he's simply trying to build the best resume for his team to have a shot at the NCAA tournament. He also pointed out that having more home games early in the season is beneficial because "if we are going to play in the cold I'd rather play at home".  He also spoke briefly about the Big Ten Conference as a whole and how the new teams are adding great depth.     Best of luck to coach Haire year one in Columbus. 

  Stanford baseball will hit the road and take on Cal State Fullerton this weekend. The Cardinals also start ACC play for the first time in 2025. There will definitely be some tough road trips, however that will come with some amazing baseball. Below is Stanford Baseball media day video where Coach Esquer and players take questions from College Baseball Weekly and other media members. 

  The St Mary's Gaels will open up with St Louis next weekend. The Gaels will then turn around for their first road trip at Vandy. Road trips later in the season include Creighton, Oregon and many other good teams.  While talking with Coach Valenzuela, the thing he loves about baseball is that any team can win on any given day if you have a good starting pitcher and excellent defense.  This is definitely the mindset you need to have all season if your team is trying to fight for a spot in the NCAA tournament come May. The Gaels finished with a 34-22 record in 2024; this year they will try to continue their winning ways in a very competitive WCC conference. 

  Santa Clara opens with a 4 game series vs Cal State Northridge. Last year the Broncos finished 26-26. This year the goal is to have a winning record. Head Coach Rusty Filter seemed pretty excited to get things going next weekend. Both players attending Media Day seemed very focus on the task at hand for the 2025 season. The Broncos are ready to get back to their winning ways of 2023, when the program had a historical run and made the NCAA tournament.

  Head Coach Rob DiToma  made it clear that he was tired of unnecessary errors during fall ball. On Thursday, during Bay Area Media Day, Coach DiToma talked about some of the tough discussions his team had during October in preparation for the 2025 season.  Last year the Dons finished 21-34, however this year there is a new excitement for the program. San Francisco opens up at Sacramento State with a 4-game series.  The next weekend they will host Central Michigan for the first home series of the season. Central Michigan is a very good ball club from the MAC conference, qualifying for the NCAA tournament in recent years. Later on in the season the Dons will have some good mid-week games against Washington, Washington State and Cal.  Best of luck to the Dons this season.