[NU Sports] Wildcat basketball ... times two!

[Evans Schoeman]

I believe what you're referring to is the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Directors Cup.  It used to be sponsored by Sears, but I think that Learfield has it now.

To say that Stanford has won it several times is an understatement.  They have truly dominated this all-sports competiton, winning it the past 15 years in a row.

Some examples of their dominance and NU points to consider:

-  this year's Stanford fall sports teams had six Top 20 finishes, even thought they didn't win any national championships

-  the Cats are tied for 67th after the fall, having gotten all of our points from men's soccer (you have to qualify for the NCAA tournament for the sport to get any points, except for football, which is based on the final USA Today poll.  Unranked bowl winners and losers also get some points.  In recent years, spring has been our strongest season, with lax, softball, tennis, and golf all doing very well.  This has enabled us to move up to the 30s or 40s each year

-  the Cats field teams in fewer sports than most Div I schools, and that puts us at a built-in disadvantage, since we have fewer opportunities to collect points.

- last year, Stanford finished with 1455 points, and N. Carolina had 1184 for 2nd.  The Cats had 483 points, good for 44th place.  The point margin between 1st and 2nd places was huge.

-  the same teams seem to finish in the Top 5 each year:  Michigan, UCLA, USC.  No surprise there.

Considering the above, a Top 20 finish would be an outstanding achievement for our teams.  I believe that our best to-date is about 27th.  We're likely to win a football or basketball national championship before we ever seriously "challenge" for this award...but I would sure love to eat my words.



________________________________
From: "hakirsch at aol.com" <hakirsch at aol.com>
To: SjT (Stephen J. Truog) <sjtruog at yahoo.com>; nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com; nwu-sports at tssi.com
Sent: Wed, December 23, 2009 11:22:30 PM
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Wildcat basketball ... times two!

There is a trophy for most collegiate championships women included. Can't recall the name but stanford seems to have won it several times. Perhaps with our programs hitting on all cylinders we could challenge as well

Harry
------Original Message------
From: SjT \(Stephen J. Truog\)
Sender: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: [NU Sports] Wildcat basketball ... times two!
Sent: Dec 23, 2009 8:39 PM

Most of us have been talking about the 10-1 start for Coach Carmody's Cats on the men's hardwood, but I was browsing through the Big Ten Network podcasts the other day and was happy to see our women's team is also off to a hot start -- 10-2 with a win over (then) top 20 DePaul, 59-55.

They had a nice little interview with Coach McKeown, who seems like a pretty good hire with this turnaround in his second season - NU ended a looooong losing streak vs. Purdue, lost a heartbreaker by one to Clemson in the ACC/Big Ten challenge, beat decent teams from the Big XII and SEC and already has topped last year's win total. They host top 10 Ohio State on New Year's Eve.

As mentioned earlier on the list, it's been a pretty good year for the purple -- let's hope it keeps going in 2010 and starts off with a bang in Tampa!

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

* * * * * * * * *
STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!


      

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