TCU baseball’s No. 1 ranking about to take a nine-game test

Out of the gate at 6-1, TCU begins a third week as the nation’s top-ranked team, thanks to its strong start.

The Horned Frogs remained at the top of the Baseball America and DIBaseball.com rankings Monday following a weekend series victory against Arizona State.

But Tuesday, the Frogs begin a stretch of nine games that will be their biggest test yet as No. 1.

In order, TCU will play Rice, No. 4 LSU, No. 25 Texas A&M, No. 20 Ole Miss, Dallas Baptist, a three-game series at UC-Irvine and Long Beach State.

Combined, those teams begin the week 40-18.

They are all top 100 in RPI.

TCU has not played a top-100 RPI team yet.

“This is a good stretch for us,” TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “It’ll prepare us for conference play. If we can have some success against it, maybe it’ll help us at the end of the season, too.”

The stretch begins with Rice (3-5), which split a series at Texas to start the season and is coming off a series loss to Southeastern Louisiana. The Owls are 39th nationally in strength of schedule, having also played Dallas Baptist (18th RPI).

Then it’s LSU (7-1), A&M (6-1) and Ole Miss (7-0) on consecutive days starting Friday at the Shriners College Classic at Minute Maid Park in Houston. Ole Miss ranks first in the country in RPI and strength of schedule, having swept 4-3 East Carolina to start the season and 3-3 NC-Wilmington last week. The Rebels also have a win against 6-3 Arkansas State.

After the Houston weekend, the Frogs come home for a game against DBU and then play a three-game series at UC-Irvine (3-4) and a single at Long Beach State (4-3).

Big 12 play begins the following weekend, March 17-19, against Kansas at Lupton Stadium.

“Those are the teams you want to play, especially in that environment, a big-league stadium,” Schlossnagle said of the Houston tournament, which will showcase his team with prime-time starts Friday and Saturday. “I’d venture to guess there will be between 20,000 and 30,000 people there.

“It’s just going to be an awesome life experience. You can come out of that thing with some success and feel good about yourself. You can come out of that thing 0-3 and still feel pretty good about your team.”

Also in the Houston event are No. 21 Texas Tech (39th in RPI) and undefeated Baylor (No. 3 in RPI, fifth in strength of schedule) of the Big 12.

“Somebody in that tournament is going to go 0-3 and play in Omaha,” Schlossnagle said. “That’s my prediction.”

This story was originally published February 27, 2017 at 11:36 AM with the headline "TCU baseball’s No. 1 ranking about to take a nine-game test."