Final (sort of) Directors' Cup Standings Revealed; Michigan 3rd
The final 2012-2013 NACDA Directors' Cup standings were released today. Link? LINK
Stanford is the winner (only their 19th straight).
Florida jumped us for 2nd place.
Michigan is 3rd, followed by UCLA then Penn State.
Two out of the Top 5 are Big-10; not bad.
Michigan has finished in the Top 3 in 3 of the last 10 years, Top 5 in 6 of the last 10 years, and Top 10 in 8 of the last 10 years ('09-'10, and '10-'11 are the bad years).
And I say it's sort of the final standings, because the CWS is still going on. Even if UCLA wins, apparently it won't be enough to pass Stanford. I'm still rooting for IU, FWIW. UCLA may be able to pass us if the win the CWS...I'm not sure on it though. So we may be looking at a 4th place finish.
Also, in Division 2 news, GVSU lost to Grand Canyon (AZ) in back to back years, after winning it in 8 straight years. GVSU has placed 1st or 2nd in 12 straight years.
...pass Michigan. Current standings: 3. Michigan 1,138.25; 4. UCLA 1,127.25 for a difference of 11 points. Michigan won't earn any baseball points. UCLA is in the CWS (final 16) so their lowest point total possible is 58.5. They scored a 23 in Men's Tennis, so that's a minimum net gain of 35.5.
A 4th place finish for Michigan would be its best finish since a 3rd in 2007-08.
How can they release a final standing when the CWS is still being played....
It's final in the sense that nobody can pass Stanford.
If you ain't first, you're last.
I've never bothered to investigate this myself, so I'll ask the board - can someone explain Stanford's total dominance in this? Is it just that they are so very good at the non-revenue sports? Do they offer significantly more sports? (I can't imagine that they do.)
Offer lots of non-$ generating sports... and play them well.
can you imagine a better recruiting pitch for a women's/non-revenue athlete? Especially in Pac 12-centric sports, I really don't know how they lose a whole lot of recruiting battles, even to UCLA or Cal.
One factor is that Stanford has 36 varsity sports. That's many more than most schools. I think Michigan has 27 or so (28 if you count Womens LAX). So they offer a variety of country club "sports" not offered by tax-payer supported universities (like fencing, squash, sailing, "lightweight rowing," "sand volleyball" http://facts.stanford.edu/campuslife/athletics).
That's cool and all, and I don't begrudge Stanford their squash excellence, but it's not a level playing field. But to me, some of these varsity sports at Stanford are as valid as Calvinball, beerpong, sloshball, or darts.
I went to the mall to find a Stanford Squash National Champions! T-shirt, but I just couldn't find one.
BECAUSE NOBODY CARES.
Almost all of those sports you mention (squash, sailing, lightweight rowing, sand volleyball) have nothing to do with the Directors Cup. Only sports in which the NCAA conducts a championship, plus football, count in the Directors Cup.
Stanford and Michigan sponsor essentially the same number of sports. Stanford has 3 Directors Cup sports that Michigan does not have--Fencing, Men's Volleyball and Men's Water Polo, while Michigan has 2 Directors Cup sports that Stanford does not have--Hockey and Men's Lacrosse.
So Stanford has 1 more sport in which they can score Directors Cup points than Michigan: not a huge advantage, especially considering you can only count points in 20 sports total (10 men's and 10 women's) for the Cup.
It's just an empty cup.
You can speak with cars?
1) Michigan will finish 4th. UCLA will pass us after baseball and Texas A&M will get within 10 points, but no other school can pass Michigan.
2) Florida came close to knocking off Stanford. If their baseball team had finished second in their NCAA regional, that would have been enough.
3) Interesting that they changed the scoring structure so that you can now count indoor and outdoor track as completely separate sports (you used to only be able to apply the higher of the two scores). With new facilities and a new track coach on the way, hopefully Michigan can be more productive in future years.