Michigan in 1st place in Director's Cup - Can they hold off Stanford ?
After Men's Gymnastics won the National Title, Michigan has jumped above Stanford into 1st place.
This puts us at #1 in the directors cup through the winter season. We will end up with a 20-30 point lead or so over Stanford.
A lot of unlikely things would have to happen for Michigan to maintain their lead, but this still might be the closest race anybody has given Stanford in the last decade.
It has been 9 years since anybody but Stanford had the lead at this point in the season, though. Michigan led Stanford by 60 at the end of the winter season of 2004, but ended up losing by 107 points in the final standings.
Don't forget about Men's AND Women's Tennis who are both playing for B1G Regular Season Championships tomorrow and most likely have all but clinched a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
So we got Mens and Womens Tennis, softball, baseball and mens and womens track,womens and mens golf, womens water polo, mens volleyball, womens rowing
as of april 11, 2013, we were only 3 pts behind stanford.
so, how does stanford look in these sports? someone said that Unfortunately, Stanford should gain at least 100 points on Michigan in the spring sports. More likely 200. what do you think?
Do you think we have a chance ?
any other sports we have a chance at winning the national title in?
Dantonio'd
Softball maybe?
It sucks that this happened to be the year our hockey NCAA tournament streak ended.
it to Oklahoma City this year. I doubt Stanford will make it that far. So we should get more points for softball than Stanford does.
They'll probably murder us in men's/women's golf, unfortunately.
Top 25 Rankings for Stanford in spring sports, most rankings updated last weekend:
Softball - 16
Men's Golf - 8
Women's Golf - 12
Baseball - receiving votes
Women's T&F - 9
Women's Water Polo - 1
Men's Volleyball - 6
Women's Rowing - 9
Women's Tennis - 12
We're ranked in only a couple of these sports. So yeah, it's gonna take a miracle to beat them. But no shame in that.
I think there's about 30. Stanford won the D1 title in 2010, so I'm assuming they're pretty legit
There are apparently only 17 D-1 men's gymnastics programs. It's like 8 Big Ten teams and a handfull of other people
golf and track/field will be our demise
We should recruit Denard for track.
would we have been untouchable? I don't know how the scoring works. . .
I'm pretty sure all sports are counted equally, so no.
So I calculated the standings with the assumption that both Stanford and Michigan do exactly as well as they did last year in all spring sports. The final standings with those expectations were Stanford 1385.75 and Michigan 1196.25--a 201-point swing for Stanford in the spring sports, since Michigan has an 11.5 point lead right now.
So the question is where do we find an extra 189.5 points for Michigan (or where do we lose 189.5 points for Stanford) compared to last season.
* Baseball. We can hope for a Stanford losing streak in baseball, and a Michigan surprise win in the Big Ten baseball tournament. If Stanford goes 0-2 or 1-2 in the NCAA regional (it is unlikely that they won't make the tournament), and Michigan wins the Big Ten tournament, that is a 64 point gain for Michigan.
* Softball. If Michigan can make the WCWS, and Stanford can lose in the regionals, Michigan can gain about 20 points.
* Women's Track. Michigan didn't score any points for their performance in women's track last year, but they have the potential to get as many as 40 this year.
* Women's Tennis. It's reasonable to think that Michigan can make the NCAA semifinals and that Stanford can get upset in the roundd of 16. That's another 20 points for Michigan.
* Women's Water Polo. If somebody can keep Stanford out of the finals of the NCAAs in water polo, that's 25 points that Michigan gains on them. Michigan also has a shot at 25 more points if they win their conference tournament and qualify for the NCAA Water Polo tournament.
So we are already at 190 points, but unfortunately we are stretching it a good deal to just get there, and the other bad thing is that this depends more on Stanford being upset than Michigan performing above expectations.
To summarize: very very unlikely, but there are ways that it can happen. Watch for Michigan to win their conference tournaments in baseball & water polo, and watch for men's and women's tennis to make a run deep into the NCAAs. Watch for Stanford to get upset in the baseball regionals & in the water polo tournament. If all of this happens, start counting points.
So you're saying there's a chance.........
The men also moved up to 5th in the Capital One cup. The women are in 14th.
The Gymnastics results are not yet reflected in the Capital One Cup standings. Add 20 points for the Michigan Men and they are tied for first!
April 24th, 2013 at 11:07 AM ^
Yep, currently tied with Indiana for first!
but beating Aunt Esther would be sweet
...while wearing your #FireBeilein t-shirt.
is for Michigan to do something REALLY insane, like totally rebuild their south athletic campus and include stuff like an indoor track, lacross stadium and maybe something truly bizzare like a rowing facility.
That's what it would take.
never gunna happen of course.
Go Blue!