Can anyone give me a good reason that baseball is still unranked?
Dave Hajek’s squad entered 2026 projected to finish fourth in the RMAC. Yet with just three weeks remaining, they’ve lost only five conference games in conference play, with four of those coming against No.1 nationally ranked Colorado Mesa.
The surge is one that no one besides the 44 guys on the roster saw coming, however the 25-12-1 record has not yielded the national attention it deserves.
Despite boasting similar resumes to some teams on the list, UCCS is still yet to receive a single vote for the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association Top 25.
Here’s a few reasons why the Mountain Lions deserve to be in the top 25.
Strength of Record
An overall record of 25-12-1 stacks up against almost any other team in the country.
There are currently 10 ranked teams with 25 wins or less, with the highest of those being No. 8 West Chester with only 22 wins.
Combine this with a 14-5-1 record in RMAC play, and it’s hard to make any sort of logical debate against UCCS receiving votes at the very least.
Ranked Wins
With three straight wins over formerly ranked #25 MSU Denver in the last weekend of February, UCCS did something for the first time in the history of their young program — swept a ranked team.
Among the ten ranked teams with 25 wins or fewer, not one has matched that accomplishment this season. UCCS has done something this year that many top 25 teams have not accomplished and are going unnoticed nationally for it.
With that, No. 15 Illinois Springfield, No. 16 Seton Hill, No. 18 Bentley and No. 25 Southern New Hampshire have yet to record a ranked win this season. That means four teams with objectively weaker resumes are currently ranked while the Mountain Lions go unnoticed.
UCCS has both quality and quantity when it comes to wins and it’s time to start acting like it.
Offensive Dominance
The RMAC stats show that the Mountain Lions are top two in hits, runs, RBI’s, home runs batting average and slugging percentage.
We haven’t seen this since UCCS won the RMAC tournament in 2021, finishing their season with three wins over the best team in the country at the time.
Dominance at the plate has led UCCS to six straight series wins, including the sweep of MSU Denver.
If they’re statistically better and hold the head-to-head, why is UCCS still not ranked ahead of them?
There’s room for debate about where UCCS belongs in the top 25, but there’s no reasonable argument for why they aren’t receiving votes at all. At this point, leaving them off isn’t just questionable, it’s inexcusable.
Quality Losses
Let’s face it, no one wants to lose and it looks bad on any resume. For UCCS, their hot streak came to a halt against No.1 nationally ranked Colorado Mesa University.
The Mountain Lions were swept by the Mavericks on April 10 in a series that will prove to some why they should not be ranked.
To those people, I say that the final scores need to be put into context. Colorado Mesa is a team that has won by mercy four times and won by double digits nine times this season.
Those stats should show how dialed in that team is, but every home game against the Mountain Lions stayed within four runs, only losing game 3 of the series by one.
Now, not winning a single game is demoralizing, but UCCS showed that they can hang with the best of the best as Colorado Mesa had to sweat out all their wins.
Earlier in the season, CMU swept former No.13 ranked Augustana, so not even ranked teams are safe from losing to the nation’s top dogs.
Augustana is still receiving votes despite not being ranked inside the top 25 anymore despite their resume being similar to UCCS in terms of ranked wins and losses.
The Mountain Lions’ hopes of being ranked should not be thwarted by a close series against the nation’s best team.
With a series coming up against an MSU Denver team that is receiving votes to be ranked, a good outing by UCCS should undoubtably put them in the top 25.
Photo by the UCCS Photography Database.