DirectorsCupUpdates

The lone star show down standings took a major hit yesterday. Both CC teams finished behind A&M and the volleyball team dropped their first match of the year. With the soccer loss as well the current standings are 4-0 in favor of the Aggies.

Overall not very impressive finishes for CC, men take 7th and women 13th. Looking ahead to the regional, both teams finish behind 2 fellow south central region teams so finishing in the top 2 in the region continues to be very unlikely.

Pursuing the internet and can’t find any details. Some old stories about previous contract extensions. I think she may have been extended after having a pretty successful season 2 years back.

We will get another look at the cross country squads tomorrow morning with the SEC championships being run just after 9 am. The Texas squad will be going head to head against some of their biggest competition in the south central region - Arkansas and A&M - so we should get a clearer picture of our potential NCAA regional finish after tomorrows meet. I’m still thinking top 5 finish in the region with an unlikely chance at a top 2 finish and a trip to the NCAA championship.

The soccer team ends the year on a bit of a high note winning a battle of the 2 worst teams in the conference by beating ole miss 2-0. The win vaults them up to 14th place in the conference. It’s a 12 team conference tourney so this season is over. Texas goes 4-12-1 on the season. The worst ever for the women’s soccer program. Now we wait to see if CDC makes any moves.

Yep, and soccer is not tbd. They will be a 0 and are now a required sport. Brutal.

A quick peek at some spring sports: men’s and women’s golf have concluded fall golf and both had some strong showings and will enter the spring ranked in the top 5. The men’s team is particularly strong and will push for a natty. Both tennis teams have been competing in singles competition. Similar to golf, both likely top 5 teams with the men’s team being very strong and a natty contender. yesterday swimming and diving faced off against Tennessee. Men’s and women’s teams won handily against the tenn squads ranked 5th and 4th. Texas will be far and away the best SEC team and both of these squads will finish on the podium and push for national championships.

After some confusing CC results last week, our best guess is to go with the updated rankings. Both the men’s and women’s cross country teams are ranked in the top 5 in the south central regional (27ish points) but both are outside the top 2 (automatic qualifier to NCAAS (43 pts minimum). next Friday is sec championships. I’ll check the rankings after that meet but ultimately we will have to keep a close watch on the regional to really know how these two teams finish.

I agree with this assessment. If you want to follow along the wide spread success, be sure to follow the Directors' Cup thread where we will be following all sports throughout the year.

A good blocking and defensive effort from the Longhorns tonight. They held Arkansas to 0.124 hitting percentage and had 13 blocks. On a night where both Stafford (9 kills on .200 hitting) and Spears (5 kills on 0.67 hitting) struggled, Abby Vander Wal picked up the slack with 13 kills on 0.393 hitting. This team can win multiple ways, especially against subpar competition.

The Big 12 is a really tough soccer conference, I don't think this is a matter of tougher competition. Considering how poorly they did in the non-conference, against some bad teams and how they have struggled against the bottom of the SEC this year, this is just a bad soccer team. Losing Missimo, Byars and others has hurt but there is never a reason for a team to absolutely fall off a cliff in talent like this one has.

Some mixed results for the Cross Country teams who competed in by far their most competitive meet of the year. The women finished 12th overall, behind 5 ranked teams but also 6 unranked teams including Arkansas who they beat head to head 2 weeks ago. They did beat #3 Florida. Overall, I think it is hard to know which teams are running their top runners and what the race strategy is for these teams (ie, are some teams focused on getting a good training day in vs running all out to win a meet) The Men had a less competitive field than the women and finished 4th, with 2 ranked teams finishing ahead of them. They beat #22 Arkansas who they lost to head to head 2 weeks ago. SEC Championships in 2 weeks and regionals 2 weeks after that. I don't think we will know what to expect until it happens.

Nothing positive to report for Women's Soccer. After the surprise victory over ranked Vanderbilt, the team has gone on a 4 game losing streak and is 15th in the conference. They will miss the conference tournament. The real question is, does Ange Kelly coach this team again next year. CDC wants to compete in each and every sport and this team is by far the worst on campus and has been consistently so for years. The performance this year is the worst soccer season of all time for Texas and one of the worst athletic seasons by any team on campus in a while.

Texas hit 0.000 in the first set - thats 7 kills to 7 errors in 31 attacks. The service errors on top of that led to the lost set. Much more efficient in the 2nd and 3rd sets, hitting 0.385 and 0.366. Defense made all the difference overall, holding Bama to hit 0.148 overall. Service errors were too numerous today. You gotta serve aggressively but balanced enough that you don't give up too many free points.

Required sports actually only impact larger programs. You have to have a lot of sports score points for the required sports to come into play. I broke this down a few posts above, very few schools have their scores impacted by required sports.