South Carolina Baseball: Gamecocks rising back into top-25 polls

After falling out of most national top-25 polls last week, South Carolina baseball is inching their way back into the relevancy picture.

The Gamecocks knocked off the rival North Carolina Tar Heels in a midweek contest and then beat the Florida Gators in the first two games of the weekend series before a Sunday pitching implosion killed a sweep chance.

The overall four-game win streak (final game of Texas A&M series, UNC game, and first two against Florida) was the team's first instance of winning even two games in a row since they won six straight back in March (including a sweep of the Vanderbilt Commodores). Even with the Sunday loss, Carolina now sits at 8-7 in SEC play and boasts the fifth-best record in the conference.

Because of the good week, the national polls were a bit kinder to the Gamecocks than they were last week.

D1Baseball, an outlet that had removed South Carolina baseball from their top-25 rankings a week ago, put Mark Kingston's team at #20 this week.

Perfect Game, another outlet that had the nasty word "unranked" next to the Gamecocks before a Monday update, elected to keep Carolina out of their top-25.

Baseball America, who has been higher on the YardCocks than most this season, slotted South Carolina baseball into the 19th spot, 6 positions higher than they were ranked seven days ago.

USC was restored to the USA Today rankings this week as the garnet and black are now ranked 21st in the country.

The NCBWA (National College Baseball Writers Association) picked the Gamecocks as the 20th-ranked team in America after leaving them out of the top-25 previously.

After being 21st in College Baseball Central's poll last week, South Carolina is now #16, their highest ranking of the week.

Things will be even more difficult for the Gamecocks moving forward. After a Tuesday contest on the road against the Citadel (7:00 PM EST on ESPN+), USC will welcome the Arkansas Razorbacks to Founders Park for the weekend series. First pitch for game 1 will be at 7:00 PM EST, game 2 will begin at 3:00 PM EST, and the series finale will start at 1:30 PM EST. All three Arkansas games will be shown on the SEC Network+.