CLEVELAND, Ohio- Tuesday morning brought about the release of the final standings in the 2022-23 LEARFIELD Directors’ Cup, an award that utilizes a scoring system with point totals for the postseason performance of each athletic program at an institution that participates in the NCAA Tournament. The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor placed 72nd overall and first amongst American Southwest Conference institutions in the final standings with 247.00 points.Â
Only teams that reach their respective NCAA Tournaments receive points that contribute towards their institution’s overall point total. Non-NCAA sponsored sports such as Acrobatics & Tumbling, a sport that UMHB won the NCATA D-III national title in this past spring, do not count towards the standings in the LEARFIELD Directors’ Cup. Additionally, the NCAA does not sponsor a D-III beach volleyball national championship, so while UMHB fields beach volleyball a program, it does not factor into the standings.
UMHB softball’s run in the NCAA Tournament, which saw the Cru win three times on their home field and reach the regional final, provided all 50.00 of UMHB’s points in the spring semester.Â
The winter portion of the year gained UMHB 64.00 points, all of which came from the men’s basketball program’s run to the Round of 16. The Cru narrowly beat Schreiner in the first round, and took down ETBU on a dramatic buzzer-beater from Josiah Johnson in the second round. Christopher Newport, the eventual national champs, won 72-60 in Newport News, Virginia in the third round, as UMHB ended the year with a 23-6 record.Â
Of the 12 NCAA sports contested in D-III during the winter months, men’s and women’s basketball are the only two sponsored by UMHB. Hence, the majority of the Crusaders’ 247.00 points gained during the 2022-23 athletic year came from the fall, as football, men’s soccer, and women’s soccer all reached the NCAA Tournament.
UMHB ranked 41st in the final fall standings with 137.00 points. Football earned 83 points after reaching the national semifinals in a 13-1 season, while men’s and women’s soccer, both eliminated in the First Round of their national tournaments, added 25 points apiece.Â
UT-Dallas joined UMHB in the Top 100, at No. 77. Johns Hopkins took the top spot, and finished in the Top 10 for the fifth-straight year. UMHB has finished in the Top 100 of the LEARFIELD Directors’ Cup in each of the last four years, with standings not recorded/released in 2019-20 or 2020-21.
Ranking of ASC institutions per the final June 13 LEARFIELD Directors’ Cup Standings
- UMHB (No. 72): 247.00 pts
- UT-Dallas (No. 77): 234.50 pts
- ETBU (No. 103): 170.50 pts
- Hardin-Simmons (No. 200): 75.00 pts
- LeTourneau (No. 234): 53.00 pts
- Concordia (No. 238): 50.00 pts
- McMurry (No. 321): 10.00 pts
