Duke picked 13th in ACC preseason baseball poll

Duke is picked to finish 13th of 16 teams in the ACC preseason poll for baseball.

The poll is voted on by the ACC’s coaches.

The Blue Devils were one win away from reaching the College World Series last season. But the feeling has shifted from knocking on the door to starting from scratch.

Within 24 hours of losing the final game, coach Chris Pollard left for Virginia (picked seventh). What followed was a mass exodus of players, many of whom following him to Charlottesville.

Duke hired Corey Muscara, pitching coach at Wake Forest for the past four seasons, to replace Pollard. He’s a first-time head coach tasked with keeping the Blue Devils near the top of the ever-competitive ACC.

Here are full results of the poll with voting points:

First-place votes in parenthesis

1. Georgia Tech, 237 points (7 first-place votes)

2. North Carolina, 236 (6)

3. Florida State, 221 (1)

4. Louisville, 196

5. Clemson, 185 (2)

6. N.C. State, 169

7. Virginia, 165

8. Miami, 159

9. Wake Forest, 145

10. Stanford, 99

11. Virginia Tech, 89

12. Notre Dame, 87

13. Duke, 67

14. Pitt, 45

15. California, 41

16. Boston College, 35

As a reminder: There are 16 schools that field baseball teams in the ACC. Syracuse and SMU do not have programs.