DU Athletics released its Annual Report on the successes achieved by the department over the past academic year. The report was light on financials but heavy on the successes achieved by the Denver Athletics division both on and off the court.
The included numbers showed $4.3 million in ticket revenue, a record for the University. Hockey enjoyed 102% of capacity at Magness Arena this past season and gymnastics, along with men’s and women’s lacrosse, enjoyed record crowds during their spring seasons. OneDay4DU raised $525 thousand. Skiing received a head coaching endowment from DU alum and former skiing star Otto Tschudi.
ππ©π€π₯ ππ¨ ππ ππ€πͺ'π«π ππππ§π ππππ¨ π½πππ€π§π
Denver is again the top non-football DI school in this year's @Learfield Directors' Cup standings!π° https://t.co/DhYfwFoUUz#GoPios | @LDirectorsCup pic.twitter.com/9bCFYz33Yx
— Denver Athletics (@DU_Pioneers) June 26, 2024
Hockey won their NCAA record 10th national championship and freshman triathlete Maira Carreau won an individual nation title, DU’s 128th such accomplishment. Denver also added another 26 all-Americans to the list. Men’s lacrosse made it to Championship Weekend for the first time since 2017 and DU men’s basketball made a trip to the Summit League Tournament finals. It was the first time since 2005 that the program made it to within one win of the program’s first NCAA Tournament bid.
Gymnastics, men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball, skiing, swim & dive, men’s and women’s tennis, women’s lacrosse, and women’s golf won conference regular season titles, conference tournament titles and/or advanced to NCAA tournament appearances. All impressive feats during the 2023-24 academic year.
The report captures each team’s highlights and achievements along with a lengthy video recapping 2023-24 highlights (below).
In what has become an annual tradition, DU finished as the top I-AAA school in the overall LEARFIELD Directors’ Cup standings for the 11th straight year and the 15th time in the last 16 tries. Overall, the department finished 46th against all Division I athletics programs in the nation. It wasn’t mentioned in the report but the Pioneers also finished the year in 7th place in the Capital One Cup men’s standings ahead of the likes of Alabama, North Carolina, and Texas.
The University had a host of academic all-Americans and Denver’s student-athletes combined for a 3.585 in the last academic year, a full tenth of a point higher than the overall undergraduate population’s grade point average.
Despite some of the emerging storm clouds around Division I athletics and the NCAA, the University of Denver enjoyed another outstanding year.
Overachievers:
Ice Hockey
M. Lacrosse
M. Basketball
W. Volleyball
M. Tennis
M. Soccer
As expected:
Gymnastics
W Golf
W Lacrosse
Triathlon
W Tennis
Underachieved:
W. Soccer
W. Basketball
M/W Skiing
M Golf
Swimming/Diving
It was a great year, indeed. Not quite great as 2015 and 2017, IMHO, but Berlo should be very pleased. Hockey winning #10 was simply amazing, M lax getting back to the final four on Memorial Day weekend was a big surprise, M hoops getting to the last day at Sioux Falls was really nice and Predergast’s rookie year job with the late start and the very depleted roster she had was nothing short of incredible in W Volleyball. M Tennis taking a perfect 18-record into NCAA play was great, too. M Soccer could have used some more luck in the NCAAs, hitting all those posts at SMU, but did very well considering the injuries it had.
The “as expecteds” didn’t underperform, but they all could have finished their seasons a bit stronger. Gymnastics needed more than it got in the regional and W. lax’s defense was just not as good as last year with more experience which was strange, and did not quite match the year before in the playoffs, either.
There were some underachievements, too. W Soccer should never lose a Summit Playoff Game at home. Ever. W. Basketball is still a bumbling, 8-22 (26% win percentage) under-competitive program that did not have a good season. Reminds me of the awful Kerry Cremeans years, where here ware are in year four of Doshia Woods and the team is getting worse, not better. I love her energy, but the program regressed, heading into year five. Women’s cross country skiing continues to be embarrassing and not nationally competitive, hurting the rest of the ski squad when it mattered in the NCAAs. There are only a handful of full squad qaulifying programs in skiing, and DU should be up there with Utah and CU every year, not a distant third.
Good to see that the seating refurbishment at Magness got funded for this summer. It’s been 25 years since the seats were new is a very long time, and some of those seats are flat-out mangy.
All in all, we DU fans are very lucky fans to have the sports program we have…
Yes……It really was a very good year. As compared to 100% of the other I-AAA colleges.
Thus far, Josh Berlo has done a terrific job..
Without a doubt, DU is very fortunate to have the sports program we have!
Sorry, off topic. Great long interview of Zeev on Spitting Chiclets, perhaps a few days ago. Great news, Zeev says that after consulting with Minnesota, he will be back at DU for another year. Awesome!
Otto Tschudi’s big donation to the ski team will hopefully help them get back to the top, where they belong.
can someone post a working link to the document?