Even through coaching transition, South Carolina baseball in top-25 offseason ranking

South Carolina baseball and athletic director Ray Tanner parted ways with former head coach Mark Kingston after another disappointing season in Columbia, and legendary coach Paul Mainieri was hired to take his place.

Mainieri has built an elite staff of assistants as Monte Lee (associate head coach/hitting coach), Terry Rooney (pitching coach/recruiting coordinator), John Hendry (assistant coach), and Chris Gordon (director of player development) make up one of the best groups in all of college baseball.

The revamped staff and the program's strong work in the transfer portal have South Carolina baseball fans optimistic that next year can be better even in the first year after a coaching change.

As it turns out, some national voices in the sport also believe that there will be improvement in garnet and black immediately.

In their way-too-early 2025 college baseball rankings, Baseball America has ranked the South Carolina Gamecocks as the 17th-best team in the country.

You can check out the entire ranking below:

1. LSU Tigers
2. Florida Gators
3. Florida State Seminoles
4. Clemson Tigers
5. Texas A&M Aggies
6. Virginia Cavaliers
7. Tennessee Volunteers
8. Alabama Crimson Tide
9. Duke Blue Devils
10. Oregon State Beavers
11. Georgia Bulldogs
12. North Carolina Tar Heels
13. NC State Wolfpack
14. Oregon Ducks
15. Oklahoma State Cowboys
16. Mississippi State Bulldogs
17. South Carolina Gamecocks
18. Vanderbilt Commodores
19. Texas Longhorns
20. Arizona Wildcats
21. Indiana Hoosiers
22. Stanford Cardinal
23. Kentucky Wildcats
24. Southern Miss Golden Eagles
25. Wake Forest Demon Deacons

The Gamecocks' 17th ranking also puts them 8th in the SEC and makes USC 1 of 11 Southeastern Conference squads to be included in the top-25.

While being 8th in the SEC doesn't meet the standards of the South Carolina baseball program, it would be no worse than the average finish of Mark Kingston's teams, and the Kingston-era Gamecocks played in a 14-team SEC, while 2025 will see a 16-team league for the first time.