The Atlantic Coast Conference promises high drama over the final two weeks of the regular season with just 1 1/2 games separating first-place Florida State and the teams tied for seventh, Clemson and Duke.
The next two weekends will determine which four teams earn double byes for the ACC Tournament in Durham, North Carolina, on May 20-25.
Florida State (33-10, 14-7) won two of three at home against Clemson to move past North Carolina State (30-15, 15-8) for the conference lead. The Wolfpack lost two at Miami and the third game of their series was rained out.
The Seminoles completed the series win against Clemson with a 20-9 walk-off, run-rule victory Sunday. They went deep three times in the eighth inning and finished with six homers in a game for the third time this season. Drew Faurot and Alex Lodise connected twice apiece.
FSU leads the ACC in batting (.322), slugging (.548) and homers (81). Lodise's .430 batting average and .804 slugging percentage are first in the conference, and the junior shortstop has played his way into being a projected second-round draft pick.
Left-hander Jamie Arnold is the team's top draft prospect. Arnold (5-1, 2.29 ERA) ranks among the national leaders in strikeouts per nine innings (11.95) and walks and hits per inning (0.96) and is projected to be among the first five picks.
Third-place North Carolina (35-10, 15-9) has the ACC's toughest closing stretch. The Tar Heels host rival N.C. State this week and then visit FSU.
There was disagreement at the top of the polls Monday. Texas (38-8) remained No. 1 by D1Baseball.com after it was swept at Arkansas. The Razorbacks (40-9) were the top choice in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association poll. Georgia (39-11) was No. 1 in the Baseball America rankings after it swept Missouri on the road and extended its win streak to six games.
DIBaseball promoted Florida State from No. 5 to No. 2 and dropped LSU (38-11) from No. 2 to No. 3 after it lost two of three at Texas A&M.
Baseball America dropped Texas from No. 1 to No. 2 and gave Arkansas a hefty promotion from No. 10 to No. 3. The NCBWA poll had Texas No. 2 and LSU No. 3.
One month ago, Florida was 1-11 in Southeastern Conference play. Since then the Gators have won 10 of 12 conference games to move into position for an NCAA Tournament bid.
Florida (33-16, 11-13) swept South Carolina on the road, with Kevin O'Sullivan picking up his 750th career win with Sunday's 8-0 victory in the second game of a doubleheader. The sweep was the Gators' first in Columbia since 1996 and first on the road against any team since 2022.
Caleb Shpur became the first UConn player since 1979 to have a seven-hit game when he went 7 for 7 with six singles and a home run in a 29-10 win at Villanova on Saturday.
The previous player to collect seven hits was Payton Brennan of UCLA, against UC Santa Barbara on March 26, 2024.
Arizona State used a five-run seventh inning to beat Baylor 8-6 on Sunday and win the series. The Sun Devils have had 112 innings in which they've scored at least two runs, 60 innings with at least three, 28 innings with at least four and 18 innings with at least five. They're second in the Big 12 Conference with 8.5 runs per game.
Northeastern's 10-0 win over Delaware on Sunday was the Huskies' nation-leading 16th in a row and 14th shutout, the most since Oregon State blanked 14 opponents in 2017. ... The Big East looks like a three-team race with first-place Creighton (31-13, 12-3) having won nine straight conference games and UConn (30-18, 14-4) having won 12 in a row in league play. The Bluejays are percentage points ahead of the Huskies. Third-place Xavier (29-21, 13-5) plays three games at Creighton this weekend. ... TCU's Colton Griffin tied a single-game school record with three doubles in a 13-6 win over Arizona on Sunday. ... Brandon Bak threw Illinois-Chicago's first no-hitter since 2004 in Saturday's 10-0 seven-inning win at Valparaiso.
AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports
FILE - Florida State infielder Alex Lodise (1) bats during an NCAA baseball game against Florida in Jacksonville, Fla., March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Gary McCullough, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.
With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?
“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”
Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”
Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.
Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.
Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”
Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.
“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.
Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.
Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.
Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."
“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.
The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.
The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”
Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”
Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.
Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.
“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”
Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”
Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.
“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.
Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”
“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.
AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.
In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)
