In what has become a familiar position, the University of Denver athletics finished as the top I-AAA school in the Directors’ Cup standings. The Pioneers landed in the top spot for the tenth consecutive season and 14th time out of the last 15 years. Compared to all DI programs in the nation, Denver finished in the 63rd spot with a point total of 373.25 points. The I-AAA Directors’ Cup award goes to the best DI non-football athletic program in the country. DU finished ahead of Pepperdine, their closest points competitor, by 88.75 points.
Denver’s final score was buoyed by strong finishes in men’s soccer, women’s lacrosse, hockey, skiing, and women’s gymnastics. South Dakota State, a Summit League member with FCS football finished 87th overall with 211.5 points. North Dakota State, also with FCS football, finished 126th with 140 points. Oral Roberts made a run in basketball and baseball NCAA tournaments this past academic year and finished with 103 points.
Locally, the University of Colorado edged the University of Denver with 377 points and a 61st ranking in the overall Directors’ Cup rankings. Stanford won the Directors’ Cup when including football schools. With 15 allowable sports to be counted, the Cardinal secured its 26th overall LEARFIELD Directors’ Cup with 1,412.00 total points. They claimed three national titles – men’s gymnastics, women’s rowing, and women’s water polo – while also tallying five top-3 finishes (women’s swimming and diving, women’s golf, softball, women’s tennis, and men’s outdoor track and field). Overall, Stanford scored in 3 of 4 countable sports, along with 15 additional total sports. The following scores were removed – women’s cross country and soccer, women’s gymnastics, men’s indoor track and field, wrestling, women’s outdoor track and field, and fencing – due to the maximum number of additional sports to be counted being 15.
Winning the D-I AAA cup each year seems like a given.
But there is much more in this data if you look beneath the hood.
FACT: This year was DU’s worst total point finish (373.25) in more than a DECADE – in fact, since 2012 as this table below points out. And, DU has been actually sliding lower and lower pretty much each year since the 2017 peak finish of 634.25.
Denver’s Directors’ Cup History
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Year Highest D-1AAA team (overall rank-point total)
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2023 – Denver (63– 373.25)
2022 – Denver (59 – 417.75)
2021 – Denver (51 – 408.25)
2020 – Not awarded
2019 – Denver (52 – 484.00)
2018 – Denver (47 – 529.25)
2017 – Denver (35 – 634.25) – highest all-time finish
2016 – Denver (52 – 433.00)
2015 – Denver (49 – 508.75)
2014 – Denver (43 – 519.25)
2013 – Denver (55 – 425.50)
2012 – Pepperdine (Denver – 85 – 227.50)
2011 – Denver (54 – 384.50)
2010 – Denver (65 – 306.80)
2009 – Denver (54 – 396.50)
2008 – Denver (47 – 434.25)
2007 – 74 – 267.25
2006 – Not in top-100
2005 – 68 – 250.50
2004 – 59 – 333.75
2003 – 75 – 214.75
2002 – 75 – 241.00
2001 – 87 – 180.00
2000 – Not in top-100
1999 – 74 – 110.00
The Pioneers’ usual point production from programs like swimming and volleyball has fallen off the grid entirely, and we very well could be looking at more years of declining scores in front of us, due to a lack of increased overall investment. I hope to see scores in the 500s and 600s again, but I fear without more money coming into athletics, we are on a downward overall trend…
Someone pissed in swami’s Cheerios again
Come on, it’s still good and we can’t throw 100 million at athletics or whatever you think we need to do, enjoy things once in awhile
Sometimes we all suffer from pissy cheerios.
As in all fanbases, there is wide spectrum of DU fan types out there, ranging from dilettantes (the most) to die hards (the few).
As die hard fans here, I believe it is our job to hold the DU administration accountable when aren’t they supporting athletics at the level they deserve to be supported. And we’re seeing a DU athletic department that is being underfunded relative to its peers, and we’re starting to see the impact of that funding decline with the erosion of once-proud programs.
Overall, we’re all seeing the overall DU points slippage year over year since 2017, and we believe that athletic funding shortages are a big part of the reason why things are slipping. If we don’t point that out, who will? The Denver Post? The Clarion? If no one complains, they’ll just keep cutting the funding. I am fully aware that it might sound like a broken record, but I also know that its the squeaking wheels that eventually get greased…