No one is surprised that West Coast additions UCLA, Oregon, Southern California and Washington are lined up in a row in the Big Ten Conference standings.
What's surprising is that Iowa is the one team in front of them.
The Hawkeyes (27-11, 17-4), picked ninth in the conference by D1Baseball.com, are coming off a three-game sweep at Michigan and start the week 2 1/2 games ahead of second-place UCLA.
Iowa now starts one of the toughest finishing Big Ten stretches. It hosts Indiana this week, visits Washington on May 2-4 and closes at home against Oregon on May 15-17.