Arizona baseball: Wildcats sit atop first RPI rankings of 2017 season

We are three weeks in to the college baseball season, and the Arizona Wildcats have one of the best records in the country, sitting at 10-1.

This, combined with the stiff competition they faced this weekend in Frisco, has put the Wildcats atop the first RPI rankings of 2017.

Here’s a look at all of the various polls and where Arizona stands.

Warren Nolan, which is the best site for live RPI standings, tabs Arizona with the second-best strength of schedule among all teams this year. Those McNeese State games may turn out to be big, as the Cowboys are undefeated other than that four-game sweep, and have also handed No. 10 Missouri State its only loss of the year so far.

Arizona has two enormous RPI road games in the next week-plus. They’ll take on Texas Tech in Lubbock on Tuesday night, and then have a single game at Cal State Fullerton next Wednesday.

The Pac-12 as a whole is in pretty good shape in the RPI in the early going as well. Only Cal (236th) is outside the top 100. This bodes well for the conference as it looks to pick up more bids in the postseason than it has in recent years.

As you can also see, Arizona has made some pretty big moves up in the human rankings. They are largely a top-ten team these days, with Baseball America and Perfect Game being the lone holdouts. Texas Tech made a huge jump from 24 to 8 in the PG rankings thanks to wins over LSU and Ole Miss in Houston this past weekend.

Big game for the Cats on Tuesday in a lot of ways, and could be important when a Regional hosting bid is on the line in late May.