As “defending ‘champs’ (or top placers) in CUSA for the NCAA Directors Cup, let’s track our 2021-22 team points.

Especially since we clinched our first points this morning!!

Directors Cup updates their official standings 3 times per school year, at the completion of the Fall sports seasons, the winter sports seasons, and the final standings after the spring sports are in.

We can keep track here “unofficially” in between the official updates, relative to our CUSA compadres, as well as teams in our next conference, the AAC… will also be able to track compared to last years results.

I have every reason to believe that Rice will be competitive straight away in non-revenue sports from day one in AAC, even if the anticipated improvements in MBB, MFB, and MBaseB don’t pan out like we all hope.
That means we should be in the mix for top dog in AAC directors cup, right there with the likes of USF starting in 2023.

But enough about the future, let’s look at NOW!!

Womens CC with their auto berth in to the National Championships have guaranteed 31st place or better, by my calculations that’s good for at least 43 points!

The Men CC placed 5th at regionals, and if they don’t earn an at-large to nationals, then we are looking at around 32 points for them (a couple less if one of the other 5th place regional teams earns an at-large nationals berth).

Sadly, no points for women’s soccer this year, injuries really kept us from repeating any thing near last seasons sweet sixteen run.

And, we are still looking (expecting) points from WVB who won the regular season conference title and are in a good position for an auto bid or at large bid to extend their 3-year NCAA bid streak.

And with our top 15 APR rating, MFB just needs two wins to qualify for an APR-assisted bowl berth (or finish 3-0 to lock up a bowl berth)

With points still on the table to earn for three of our five* fall sports, we atoll have a chance to exceed last year’s fall total in spite of the disappointment of soccer this season.