I remember the 2004 basketball season, watching Sports Center every Monday at 5:00 to find out where we were ranked. State got into the top 5 and it was unreal that we were that high. But in baseball, if only for a brief time in 2006, the Diamond Dawgs made it to #1.
Coming off a 2005 SEC Tournament championship, State was ranked #11 (Baseball America) to start the year. As the weeks went by, the Dawgs kept tallying wins without any losses, and kept moving up the polls. On March 20th, at 15-0, MSU reached #1.
I was in college at the time, so I remember it well. There were high expectations for the team going into the year, but the hot start was a little unexpected as was the 15-0 record. It was a great "moment" of pride as a fan. And I guess this particular "moment" lasted a couple of weeks.
State would go on to win their next three games, going 18-0 before losing the middle game at LSU. Still, MSU took the series and remained at #1 the next week with a 19-1 record. After a mid-week sweep of Birmingham Southern to push it to 21-1, it was all downhill.
MSU would go on to only win one more series all year. It was hard to watch the ship sink so fast. From 21-1 to 37-23 after a loss to Clemson in the Regional.