Kentucky among top 20 in final Directors’ Cup standings or fourth straight year
The University of Kentucky experienced a sports school year like no other in 2020-21. The Wildcats won national championships in two sports but also did battle with a pandemic and endured one of the worst seasons ever in their signature sport.
The result: A 12th-place finish in the 2020-21 Learfield IMG College Directors’ Cup, which measures excellence across the totality of NCAA Division I sports.
“In the most challenging year in our memory, and perhaps the most challenging year in collegiate athletics history, our teams, athletes, coaches and staff persevered with much success,” UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart said in a news release. “We will celebrate this success, and also use it for motivation as we look ahead to the coming year in our pursuit of being among the elite athletics departments in the nation.”
Kentucky’s 12th-place finish is third-best in school history, behind standings of 10th in 2016-17 and 11th in 2014-15. UK extended its streaks of four years in a row in the top 20 and nine consecutive years in the top 30, not including the 2019-20 school year when there were no standings kept because of the cancellation of winter and spring sports championships.
The Directors’ Cup began in 1993-94 and the best seven finishes in school history have been under Barnhart, all of which have come in the last eight years.
The Directors’ Cup measures competitive success for more than 350 Division I schools. For each NCAA-sanctioned sport, points are awarded based on NCAA championship participation. This year, 16 of UK’s 22 teams reached postseason play and scored points toward UK’s final Directors’ Cup tally. UK’s eight-time national championship men’s basketball program, which went 9-16 and did not earn a postseason berth, was among the Kentucky teams to come up empty.
Texas finished first in the 2020-21 standings, totaling 1,252 points, on the strength of national championships in men’s swimming and diving, women’s rowing and women’s tennis.
Stanford, which almost always finishes first in this competition, wound up second this school year with 1,195.75 points, winning national titles in women’s basketball and men’s gymnastics.
Rounding out the top five were Michigan (1,126.50), North Carolina (1,126.25) and Florida (1,121.75).
Next came Southern California, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio State, Georgia and Virginia, followed by Kentucky with 960.25 points at No. 12.
That put UK fifth among Southeastern Conference schools. The SEC led all Division I conferences with eight schools in the top 25.
National championships in rifle and volleyball delivered 100 points in each sport for Kentucky. UK finished ninth in gymnastics (66.75 points), men’s soccer (64) and softball (64). Also landing in the top 20 were women’s swimming and diving (11th), women’s indoor track and field (13th), men’s indoor track and field (14th), men’s outdoor track and field (15th), women’s basketball (17th), men’s tennis (17th), women’s tennis (17th) and women’s golf (18th).
Other UK sports to produce points were women’s outdoor track and field (21st), football (26th) and men’s swimming and diving (30th).
Among sports that UK offers, only men’s basketball, baseball, men’s golf, men’s and women’s cross country and women’s soccer did not produce points in the Directors’ Cup standings.
Within Kentucky, four schools besides UK scored Directors’ Cup points: Louisville (40th place), Western Kentucky (112th), Morehead State (182nd) and Eastern Kentucky (215th).
SEC schools behind Kentucky included LSU (15th), Texas A&M (19th), Mississippi (22nd), Tennessee (26th), South Carolina (42nd), Missouri (48th), Auburn (50th), Vanderbilt (56th) and Mississippi State (59th).
This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 10:40 AM.