June 28, 2007
Final Standings in PDF Format
EVANSTON, Ill. -- Led by spectacular spring and winter seasons and postseason berths from 10 of its 19 teams, Northwestern University's athletic department earned a 30th-place showing in the 2006-07 U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup with a school-best 626.5 points. This is the third-straight top 30 finish after finishing a program-best 29th in each of the two previous years. For the third-straight year, Northwestern finished sixth among its Big Ten peers in the Cup standings. Prior to 2004-05, NU had never finished above ninth in the conference. This feat is particularly impressive considering NU (along with Illinois) has the fewest teams in the Big Ten with 19. The Wildcats finished ahead of Michigan State, Purdue, Illinois, Indiana and Iowa. The U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup was developed as a joint effort between the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) and USA Today. The United States Sports Academy, based in Daphne, Alabama, is the program's sponsor. Points are awarded based on each institution's finish in up to 20 sports -- 10 women's and 10 men's, receiving a maximum of 100 points for a national championship. Once again, the spring season propelled Northwestern into the top-30 for the third-straight year. In addition to women's lacrosse's 100 points, softball earned 83 points with its third-place finish at the Women's College World Series, while women's tennis brought in 63 points for advancing to the NCAA Round of 16. Women's and men's golf earned 38.5 and 35.5 points, respectively, with their showings at the NCAA Regional Championships. Northwestern also enjoyed an outstanding the winter season. The wrestling team matched its best-ever finish with a fourth-place showing at the NCAA Championships, picking up 80 points. The men's swimming team earned its highest placing in the modern era with a sixth-place national finish (73.5 points) while women's fencing finished 11th with 57 points. Women's swimming also picked up 22 points for the 'Cats with its 41st-place finish at the NCAA Championships. The men's soccer team's run in the NCAA Tournament highlighted the fall season. The Wildcats advanced farther than any team in program history -- all the way to the quarterfinals -- earning 73 points for its fifth-place finish. "This was another remarkable year for our athletic program," Northwestern Director of Athletics Mark Murphy said. "We earned the most points in the history of our athletics program and qualified 10 of our teams for NCAA competition. Our lacrosse team won its third-straight national title and we picked up three more individual titles with wrestling's Jake Herbert and men's swimming's Matt Grevers and Mike Alexandrov. That duo also teamed up with Kyle Bubolz and Bruno Barbic to win the 400 medley relay title. We had a number of All-America and All-Big Ten awards and many of our coaches and student-athletes earned individual honors as well. We have a lot to be proud of as a department." Michigan led the Big Ten with its fourth-place finish, with Ohio State (14th), Wisconsin (16th), Minnesota (20th) and Penn State (21st) rounding out the top five in the conference. Northwestern finished behind 29th-place Washington's 641.25 points and ahead of Arkansas who was 31st with 604.08. Stanford won the Directors' Cup title for the 13th-straight year with 1,429.00 points, followed by UCLA and North Carolina.
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