The 2026 UCLA Bruins baseball team left meat on the bone in the postseason. After surviving a dramatic Big Ten Conference tournament, UCLA ran out of steam in the NCAA Regionals, losing twice at home to Saint Mary’s to end their season.
Next year’s Bruin team will look a lot different. While John Savage will remain as UCLA’s head coach, the team he rolls out will have a lot of fresh faces, with Roch Cholowsky, Roman Martin and Mulivai Levu all expected to be taken in the opening rounds of this year’s MLB Draft.
In the final USA TODAY Coaches Poll of the 2026 season, UCLA came in at No. 10, a pretty respectable ranking for a team who did not crack the Super Regionals. The champion Oklahoma Sooners rightfully reside in the No. 1 spot with the runner-up North Carolina Tar Heels at No. 2.
The highest-ranked Big Ten team? Still the Bruins, even though both USC and Oregon ended up making it farther in the NCAA tournament. Oregon ended up at No. 14 and USC at No. 15 with Nebraska at No. 22 being the only other Big Ten team to make the Coaches Poll’s Top-25.
UCLA made history by sitting in the No. 1 spot in the poll throughout the entire regular season but the Bruins saw that come to a close in the postseason. Since joining the Big Ten in 2025, UCLA has dominated the conference, even appearing in the College World Series in 2025. The Bruins weren’t able to turn those two strong seasons into an NCAA title, with UCLA having not won a CWS title since 2013.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: Where did UCLA baseball end up in the final Coaches Poll of the year?
Reporting by Dylan McNeill, UCLA Wire / UCLA Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Dylan McNeill, UCLA Wire | USA TODAY Network
