Baseball Ranked As High As No. 23 In Latest Polls

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – The Southern Miss baseball team, which recently completed a 40-15 regular season and enters this week's Conference USA Tournament as the third seed, is ranked No. 23 in both the National Collegiate Baseball Writers' Association and the Sports Weekly/ESPN Top 25 Polls, No. 24 by Baseball America and No. 28 by Collegiate Baseball.

Southern Miss (40-15, 21-9 in Conference USA) is one of three C-USA teams to be ranked in the latest polls. East Carolina (47-9) is ranked No. 4 by Collegiate Baseball and NCBWA and No. 6 by Baseball America and Sports Weekly-ESPN Coaches Poll. Tulane (38-17) is ranked No. 16 by Sports-Weekly-ESPN Coaches Poll, No. 19 Baseball America, No. 21 by NCBWA and No. 27 by Collegiate Baseball. Other league foes who are receiving votes in the various polls include USF, TCU and Houston

The Golden Eagles travel to Houston, Texas, to compete in the 2004 Conference USA Tournament. The first game of the tournament will be on Wednesday, May 26, at 9 a.m. It will feature (3) Southern Miss against (6) Memphis, and the second game will be between (7) UAB and (2) Tulane at 12:30 p.m. The two winners will play at 4 p.m., on Thursday and the two losers will play at 9 a.m. on Thursday.

(8) Louisville will face (1) East Carolina on Wednesday at 4p.m., and (4/5) TCU and (4/5) Houston will square off at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday night. The two winners will play on Thursday at 7:30 p.m., and the two losers will play at 12:30 p.m.

Last year, Southern Miss (47-16, 23-7 Conference USA) won the regular season and went into the tournament as the No. 1 seed. The Eagles defeated Charlotte, 13-0, in the first round, Houston, 7-2, in the second round, East Carolina, 3-1 in the semifinals and Tulane in the championship, 7-5.