Hoosier baseball ranked as top-10 team

Three of the nation’s preeminent college baseball publications have released their preseason national rankings, and each features IU among its top 10 Division I teams.

Baseball America, Perfect Game and the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper have the Hoosiers ranked No. 3, No. 5 and No. 7 in the country, respectively, after the program’s first trip to the College World Series last season. IU is the highest-ranked Big Ten team in each publication’s list, and is the Big Ten’s most highly-ranked team in Baseball America’s rankings since Michigan began the 1988 season at No. 3.

A preseason seat among the country’s elite is unfamiliar territory for the IU baseball program, which had not fielded a nationally ranked team until March 11, 2013, when Baseball America tabbed the Hoosiers as its No. 24 squad. Before that ranking, IU had played 117 full seasons without breaking into the national rankings.

IU will begin the 2014 season Feb. 14 with a four-game series against Texas Tech in Lubbock, Tex.

— Alden Woods