Texas is No. 1 in the D1Baseball Preseason Top 25 rankings for the first time ever. In fact, this marks the first time the Longhorns have ever been ranked No. 1 in the D1Baseball Top 25, which began in 2015. Texas welcomes back numerous key pieces, including the cornerstones of an elite pitching staff, from a team that won 50 games and reached the national semifinals in Omaha last spring.

SEC powers Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State and Ole Miss occupy the next four spots to round out the top five. The SEC leads all conferences with eight teams in the Top 25, including six in the top 10, counting No. 8 LSU and No. 9 Florida. Georgia (No. 16) and Tennessee (No. 18) also landed in the rankings out of the SEC..

The Pac 12 Conference will host its inaugural league baseball tournament in Scottsdale, Ariz., in 2022, the conference announced on Wednesday.

The announcement comes as no surprise to anyone who has followed our coverage of this possibility the last couple of years. The league was on track to have a conference baseball tournament in 2021. However, some logistical hurdles and the COVID-19 pandemic caused the idea to be shelved this past spring.

The tournament, which has greatly gained favor from the league’s coaches over the past few seasons, is now back on and will be played at Scottsdale Stadium — spring training home for the San Francisco Giants — through the 2024 season.