For Kentucky, the 2023-24 Directors’ Cup standings tell an unhappy story

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The magical run to the men’s College World Series by the Kentucky Wildcats baseball team put an ecstatic finish on what was — by recent standards — an otherwise middling UK sports year.

That point was driven home this week when the final standings for the 2023-24 Learfield Directors’ Cup were revealed. In the measure of a school’s all-around athletics success, Kentucky finished 32nd — its worst finish in the Directors’ Cup since coming in 36th in 2010-11.

The 32nd-place standing by Kentucky in the just-concluded school year snapped a streak of six straight completed athletics years in which UK had finished in the top 20 in the Directors’ Cup standings.

Over the past three school years, Kentucky’s finish in the Directors’ Cup has now dropped from ninth (2021-22) to 18th (2022-23) to 32nd (2023-24).

In the Directors’ Cup, points are awarded in each NCAA-sanctioned sport based on how schools fare in NCAA Tournament competition as well as in football bowls and playoff games.

Overall, 19 sports for each school are counted in the final Division I standings, four of which must be women’s volleyball and basketball and men’s basketball and baseball. For each school, the best 15 team finishes from among the other sports are also used in the standings.

One of Kentucky’s problems in the Directors’ Cup battle for 2023-24 is that UK had nine different programs — men’s cross country, golf and swimming; women’s basketball, cross country, indoor track and field, soccer, swimming and tennis —that produced no Directors’ Cup points.

The top scorers for Kentucky in the Directors’ Cup were rifle (80 points for finishing fourth in the NCAA Tournament); baseball (78 points after winning a game in the CWS); and men’s tennis (73 points after reaching the NCAA tourney Elite Eight).

As has been the case in recent years, UK did not get much Directors’ Cup value from the sport with which it is most identified. Kentucky men’s basketball produced just 33 Directors’ Cup points after being upset in the NCAA Tournament round of 64 by No. 14 seed Oakland.

The UK men’s hoops program has won only one NCAA tourney contest in the past four years, meaning it has made a limited contribution to Kentucky’s Directors’ Cup standing.

Among Southeastern Conference schools in the 2023-24 Directors’ Cup, Kentucky ranked ninth — behind Tennessee (No. 3), Florida (No. 4), Texas A&M (No. 6), Alabama (No. 9), LSU (No. 13), Georgia (No. 16), Arkansas (No. 18) and South Carolina (No. 30).

The SEC schools that UK finished ahead of were Auburn (No. 33), Mississippi (No. 38), Missouri (No. 55), Vanderbilt (No. 57) and Mississippi State (No. 60).

Two years ago, UK finished third among SEC schools in the Directors’ Cup standings. Last year, the Wildcats came in seventh among league athletics programs.

Texas, which will join the SEC for the 2024-25 school year, won the Directors’ Cup in 2023-24. It was the third such victory for the Longhorns in the past four years.

Oklahoma, also coming to the Southeastern Conference in the coming school year, finished 24th.

Louisville finished No. 49 in the 2023-24 Directors’ Cup standings. That is the worst finish for U of L since it came in 54th in 2005-06.

UK has now finished ahead of U of L in the Directors’ Cup standings 12 straight times.

Since Mitch Barnhart has been Kentucky AD, UK has finished ahead of U of L in the Directors’ Cup 17 times in 21 completed athletics years. The last time Louisville finished ahead of Kentucky was 2010-11, when the Cardinals came in 34th and the Wildcats 36th.

However, Tennessee finished ahead of UK in the Directors’ Cup for the second straight year. Prior to that, Kentucky had finished ahead of UT in the standings 10 years in a row.

Among in-state schools other than Kentucky and Louisville, Western Kentucky finished No. 139 in the 2023-24 Directors’ Cup standings, followed by Eastern Kentucky (No. 193), Morehead State (No. 217) and Northern Kentucky and Murray State (among schools tied at No. 262).

In the final school year of its transition period as it moves from NCAA Division II to Division I, Bellarmine was not eligible for Directors’ Cup points.

Though not all fan bases are fully invested in the Directors’ Cup, within the college sports industry great emphasis is placed upon it, especially by athletics administrators.

There are some limits to the Directors’ Cup as a measurement. In UK’s instance, the standout sports achievement of Kentucky’s 2023-24 school year — winning outright or sharing SEC team championships in baseball, men’s tennis and volleyball — is not reflected in the Directors’ Cup standings.

Nevertheless, for UK, which has taken justifiable pride in the development of its all-around athletics program, the fact that the trend in Directors’ Cup competition is not Kentucky’s friend is concerning.

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