Conference tournaments are underway. Crucial regular-season finales are set. It is crunch time in the DII baseball season with the 2026 selection show just days away. Before the bracket is filled right here on NCAA.com on May 10, let’s get caught up on the best teams in DII.
🔥⚾🔥Kings of the hill: DII baseball impact pitchers
North Greenville, Tampa and, believe it or not, Colorado Mesa all lost this week. However, so did several other Power 10 teams that helped the Big Three maintain their spots, and even brought new faces to the Power 10 party. The Power 10 rankings are compiled by myself; however, I do take other ratings into consideration — such as Faktor Sports KPI, both of Inkblot Sports RPI and PI, as well as Pear Ratings NET — to cast a wide net and help show you the metrics that make a Power 10 different than a poll that is voted upon. While close, it is very rarely identical to the national polls, so I try to explain the rationale in as much detail as I can.
DII baseball Power 10 rankings through May 3
No. 1 North Greenville | Previous: 1. The Trailblazers and Mavericks are as close as it gets, and by the time you read this, Colorado Mesa may have a larger case to be No. 1. That is because later on Monday, May 4, North Greenville plays top 25 Young Harris for the Conference Carolinas championship. North Greenville lost to Young Harris earlier in the tournament, but responded by thumping top-25 Belmont Abbey by eight runs, bumping Francis Marion from the Power 10 in another eight-run win, and then avenging that loss to Young Harris in a five-run victory to force the winner-take-all championship. The Trailblazers are also No. 1 in RPI and PI in the Southeast Region, and No. 2 in both NET and KPI.This has been a juggernaut since opening day.
No. 2 Colorado Mesa | Previous: 2. The Mavericks lost a baseball game this weekend in a one-run ball game to an MSU Denver team fighting for their DII baseball championship lives. They responded with three-straight wins against said team, outscoring them 32-5. The Mavericks are 45-4 and 31-1 in the RMAC. They have the No. 3 NET, the No. 4 KPI and the top RPI and PI in the South Central. They are also top 10 in scoring, with one more run giving them 500 on the season. Pair that with the best ERA, batting average against and most strikeouts in the entire South Central Region, and you have the definition of a powerhouse.
No. 3 Tampa | Previous: 3. After putting up 33 runs on Friday and Saturday, Tampa’s bats struggled in a 2-1 loss to Eckerd on Sunday. So what? The Spartans still have the No. 3 NET and KPI in DII. They have also clinched the Sunshine State Conference, and with no tournament, that gives Tampa automatic entry into the DII baseball championship, where they can officially put a threepeat on the radar. Tampa had not one, but two aces in our deep dive into DII baseball’s best pitching, and that is what is going to power the Spartans down the stretch: They have a 2.81, a 1.16 WHIP and 3.18 strikeout-to-walk ratio, all of which lead DII and a .229 batting average against. This rotation is built for tournament-style play. Fun side note: Head coach Joe Urso and associate head coach Sam Militello won their 1,100 game together as a dynamic duo. That doesn’t happen by mistake; this is the team to beat in the tournament, bar none.
No. 4 Catawba | Previous: 4. The Indians advanced to the SAC championship series next weekend with three-straight convincing wins in the conference tournament. They have 41 wins, giving them their third 40-win season in a row, and own the No. 4 NET, No. 8 KPI, No. 2 RPI in the Southeast and No. 4 PI. Catawba isn’t flashy, but it is a run-producing factory that blends contact and pop with a steady pitching staff that can buckle down and get the win. They are battle-tested with a winning record against nationally ranked teams and should be a force in a loaded Southeast Region tournament.
No. 5 Pittsburg State | Previous: 5. With Rogers State and Central Missouri both dropping their weekend series, the Gorillas are the unquestioned No. 1 in the Central Region. That is very impressive when you consider how much change was on this roster heading into the season. One consistent has been Dagen Brewer, who is chasing the DII triple crown with a .429 batting average, 23 home runs and 92 RBIs. They are also the No. 5 NET and KPI, so there should be very little question to where this team sits in the national rankings.
No. 6 Grand Valley State | Previous: 6. The Lakers are cruising into the GLIAC tournament with a 41-8 record and the only 40-win team in the Midwest Region. This obviously gives them both the top RPI and PI in the region, which adds to the No. 6 NET and No. 14 KPI. The Midwest Region tends to be a boom-or-bust region when it comes to the lineups. That gives the Lakers a huge edge with one of the most dominant pitching staffs in all DII, pitching to a 3.52 ERA (No. 2 in DII), 1.28 WHIP (No. 7 in DII) and a .236 batting-average against. The Road to Cary runs through Allendale, Michigan.
No. 7 West Chester | Previous: 8. West Chester remains outside the top 10 in the national polls, but that just doesn’t seem fair. The Golden Rams have the No. 1 KPI, the No. 20 NET and the top RPI and PI in the Atlantic Region. They are 7-1 over the last two weekends against two teams currently in the DII bracket (Bloomsburg and Millersville). The Golden Rams pitching staff owns the second-best strikeout-to-walk ratio in DII (3.13), the 15th-best ERA (4.13) and 12th-best WHIP (1.34), and they clearly know how to produce runs when it matters.
No. 8 North Georgia | Previous: First five out. This is flat-out impressive. A new head coach and staff opened the season with a very new-look roster, and yet the Nighthawks have their second 40-win season in a row and are set to host the Peach Belt Championship series. They are No. 9 in both NET and KPI and sit at No. 4 in RPI in the Southeast. They have power in the likes of Cam Hodge and Jake Street, hit .326 as a team and have a pair of pitchers in Andrew Duval and Matthew Heard that will make taking a three-game championship series from them very difficult. Don’t believe me? Well, the Nighthawks haven’t lost a three-game weekend series all season.
No. 9 UT Tyler | Previous: 7. The Patriots were idle this weekend, which didn’t hurt their metrics, but also didn’t improve them on a weekend where other teams did. This is the defending South Central champs and locked down their first-ever LSC regular-season title as the only team in the conference to reach 40 wins. Considering five teams are currently in the bracket from the LSC, that is impressive.
No. 10 (tie) Rollins, Seton Hill | Previous: First five out. Leave it to the final Power 10 rankings before the tournament to be the toughest to sort out. One of these teams is here purely on metrics, while the other just looks dominating on the field.
Rollins is No. 12 in NET and No. 6 in KPI but also hold the No. 1 PI and No. 3 RPI in the South Region. If West Florida falls Monday, May 4, in the GSC tournament, Rollins can potentially be a host seed with Tampa. Seton Hill has the No. 23 NET, No. 10 KPI and the No. 2 RPI in the Atlantic, so the metrics are there. But what this pitching staff is doing down the stretch certainly has the Griffins on the Cary radar.
First five (ish) out (in alphabetical order)
Once again, six teams claimed their stake at the first five out, but it is the teams that slipped just outside that also should be on watch. Rogers State has lost five of its last six heading into the MIAA tournament, and Central Missouri dropped a big series to a Missouri Southern team that is looking for an inch to get into the DII bracket. On paper, I still think Minnesota State is a top 10 team, but losing its final series of the season to a Minnesota Duluth team it should have beaten, hurt the Mavericks’ metrics, and in a power ranking, that matters.
Point Loma and Cal State Monterey Bay cancel each other out of the Power 10 because their metrics are so close. Cal State Monterey Bay has lost four of its final eight, so Point Loma may actually be slightly ahead right now, although with the No. 1 RPI and PI in the West, the Otters may still wind up the host. Francis Marion made an early exit from the Conference Carolinas tournament, but with the No. 8 NET and No. 16 KPI, the Patriots still settle in here. Young Harris battled its way to the Conference Carolinas championship game, which should lock the Mountain Lions into the DII bracket regardless of the outcome, and Wingate is set to face Catawba for the SAC title, all but locking the Bulldogs — who have the No. 15 NET and No. 11 KPI — into the bracket. In the Southeast Region, where 12 teams have a bracket argument to make, that is crucial.
- Cal State Monterey Bay
- Francis Marion
- Lee
- Point Loma
- Wingate
- Young Harris
In the conversation: As I’ve said all season, this is the deepest DII baseball has ever been. Here are 13 more teams to watch, giving us 30 that are all Power 10 worthy: Angelo State, Augustana (SD), Belmont Abbey, Central Missouri, Lenoir-Rhyne, Millersville, Minnesota State, Northwest Nazarene, Rogers State, Southern New Hampshire, St. Mary’s (TX), Wayne State (MI), West Florida.
Â
