No. 32

TigerBlog's former colleague Stacy Bunting begins her tenure as the Director of Athletics at Bates College this week. 

Bates, if you didn't know, is the Bobcats. The college is located in Lewiston, Maine — where it gets relatively cold in the winter. 

It's around a 45-minute drive north from Bates to the campus of Colby College, which is in Waterville. The Director of Athletics there is Amanda DeMartino, who came to Colby from the College of New Jersey. 

It's the Mercer County to Maine NESCAC AD pipeline.

The NESCAC is the New England Small College Athletic Conference. It is the one of the two dominant conferences in Division III athletics, along with the University Athletic Association, at least if you go by the Learfield Sports Directors' Cup. 

In fact, when TigerBlog went through the final standings for 2024-25, and it was sort of like trying to figure out who won Heps cross country. The No. 1 team in Division III was Emory of the UAA, which also had No. 4 (Washington U.), No. 8 (Chicago), No. 9 (NYU) and No. 16 (Carnegie Mellon).  

The NESCAC countered with No. 3 (Tufts), No. 5 (Middlebury), No. 7 (Amherst), No. 11 (Williams) and No. 19 (Wesleyan). That's 10 of the top 19 teams in Division III, all from those two conferences. Of the other nine, they represent seven different conferences. 

If you're scoring it like cross country, with the top five finishers, then the UAA has 38 to the 45 of the NESCAC. If you add in the sixth for both conferences, though, then you have No. 33 Colby and No. 41 Case Western Reserve, which makes the score NESCAC 78, UAA 79.

Bates, by the way, was 48th in Division III and eighth in the NESCAC. That is one competitive league that Bunting is walking into this week.

If you're wondering who won Division II, that would be Grand Valley State. The top 10 in DII represented nine different conferences. 

Division I? The winner was Texas, who edged out USC and Stanford. Only 4.25 points separated those three. 

The top 33 teams in Division I feature 32 from either the Big Ten, the ACC, the Big 12 and the SEC. The other one is from the Ivy League.

Any guesses? Well duh, it's obviously Princeton. Why else would TB mention it, right? 

The Directors' Cup uses a points system based on NCAA tournament qualification and success. There's nothing else that factors into it. There are no bonus points for being from a Power Conference or for being from a different conference. 

You either make the NCAA tournament or you don't. You either advance or you don't. 

The Cup standings award points in 19 sports for Division I. There are five sports that are included for every team in Division I: baseball, men's basketball, women's basketball, women's volleyball and women's soccer. After that, the top scoring 14 sports per school are counted, so not every school uses the exact same sports. 

The Directors' Cup dates to 1993-94, when Princeton finished 34th. Since then, Princeton's average finish has been 37.1. 

The Tigers have finished as the top Ivy program all but five times. Princeton has also been in the top 50 26 times, including each of the last 15 (other than the Covid years). 

The 2024-25 athletic year saw Princeton win a record 17 Ivy League championships, as well as two other non-Ivy titles. Yes, it was quite a year. 

A new one will be starting soon. How will it go for the Tigers? How will it go for the Bobcats?  

And good luck to Stacey as she starts her new job. You're in a tough league. Moving up in the Directors' Cup will be one big challenge. 

Staying warm will be another.