Mean Green

The Learfield Sports Directors' Cup standings were released today with only the College World Series left to be calculated. The standings are essentially the national version of the Bubas Cup, the Sun Belt's all-sports standings (Ok, I just wanted to say Bubas Cup). The award used to be known as the Sears Cup.

Any way, the NCAA calculates Learfield Cup national standings on the Division I, Division II, Division III and NAIA levels based on the member institutions' performance on a national level in all of their sports programs. A total of 273 Division I schools ended up scoring points and making the list.

UNT didn't score this year, but several Sun Belt and Texas teams did.

This is how the Sun Belt's teams ended up finishing:

52. Denver, 396.5
78. Middle Tennessee, 234
109. Western Kentucky, 157.5
168. Florida International, 75
197. Louisiana-Lafayette, 50
215. Florida Atlantic, 45
233. Troy, 25
233. Arkansas State, 25
Failed to score -- North Texas, New Orleans, South Alabama, Louisiana-Monroe, Arkansas-Little Rock

The following are UNT's area rivals:
44. TCU, 464
84. SMU, 206.5

This is a list of Texas schools that scored:
7. Texas, 1,015.5
11. Texas A&M, 951
33. Baylor, 536.75
44. TCU, 464
55. Texas Tech, 387.75
71. Rice, 262
84. SMU, 206.5
123. Houston, 131.5
163. UTEP, 78
167. Lamar, 75.13
168. Texas State, 75
186. Stephen F. Austin, 61.5
195. UT-Arlington, 52.5
213. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 45.6
226. UT-San Antonio, 35.63
233. Prairie View A&M, 25

I wanted to put this up because the standings will be completed and released in a week. It won't look good for UNT, but the standings probably are not the best measure of success for a Sun Belt level school.

UNT finished third in the Bubas Cup, a race against its peers in the Sun Belt. If a school has one team that makes a bowl game or advances to the NCAA regionals in golf, it scores a ton of points in the Learfield Cup. UNT's best programs, men's basketball and women's soccer, didn't get out of the Sun Belt tournament this year. Tennis came close to making it to the finals of the conference tournament, but came up short.

Those near misses left UNT without any points in the standings.

That looks terrible on paper when Northwestern State, Stony Brook and Stetson scored in the Learfield Cup, but it really isn't the end of the world.

Just make sure you hide the copy of USA Today in the office next week if you are one of those loud and proud UNT fans. There is a lot going right for UNT at the moment. But none of it will be reflected in the Learfield Cup standings.