The University of Alabama was 25th overall in the final standings of the Director’s Cup for 2016-17, it was announced on Thursday.
The Director’s Cup is awarded annually to honor broad-based athletic departments that experience success in many sports. Each athletic department can receive points for up to ten men’s sports and ten women’s sports in a given year.
Alabama finished eighth among the 14 SEC athletic departments. Alabama’s average spot since the 2012-2013 season is 26. The highest came in 2013-2014 with a finish at No. 17. Its lowest came in 2015-2016 when it finished at No. 36.
Alabama finished with 768.75 total points for the 2016-2017 season. Fall sports earned 146 winter sports received 327.5 points and spring sports racked up 295.25 points.
Football’s national runner-up finish earned UA 90 points, most of any team this year.
Women’s indoor track and field finished the winter with the most points of any sport with 85. Gymnastics finished second in the winter with 73.5 points, after finishing sixth at the Super Six championships in Missouri.
Men’s track and field finished the spring as the best Alabama sport in the spring. It finished with 67.5 points on its way to finishing No. 10 in the country. Softball earned 64 points with its finish in NCAA Super Regionals.
Even with the success during the season, there were many short comings.
Baseball finished its season with the least amount of wins since 1980 (19-34-1), and worst SEC record since 1994 (5-24-1), and finished with the dismissal of first year head coach Greg Goff. Baseball finished with zero points. Both men’s and women’s basketball also finished with zero points.
The women’s team finished with its best record under Kristy Curry at 22-14 and made it to the Sweet 16 of the NIT tournament. The men’s team lost in the first round of the NIT tournament for the second straight year and finished 19-15 in Avery Johnson’s second season, which is one win higher than last year’s 18-15 record.
Soccer and volleyball finished the fall with zero points.
Volleyball saw the rise of senior Krystal Rivers, who set multiple Alabama records and was nominated as NCAA Woman of the Year. The team overall finished 20-11 this past season, three wins better than the previous year. It failed to reach the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year.
Soccer finished one game over .500 (9-8-2), which is an improvement from the 5-12-2 record from last year. However, the team lost in the first round of the SEC tournament for the second straight year.
