BATON ROUGE — After having one of its most successful all-around athletic years in school history in 2003-04, LSU finished 11th in the final standings of the United States Sports Academy Director’s Cup, the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics announced on Wednesday.
LSU just missed making the top 10 as the Tigers totaled 867.75 points, only 12.50 points behind 10th place Texas. Stanford won the title for a record 10th consecutive year with 1337.3 points, followed by Michigan with 1226.3 points.
UCLA finished third in the standings with 1178.8 points, followed by Ohio State (1026.5) and Georgia (1005.3). Florida ranked sixth with 993.25 points, followed by North Carolina (925), Washington (919.5) and California (899.5).
Last year, the Tigers finished 23rd in the standings after posting a 10th place showing, which ties for their highest finish in rankings, in 2002. LSU also placed 10th in the Director’s Cup in 2000, 1998 and 1997.
The 2003-04 athletic year saw the Tigers capture national titles in football and men’s and women’s indoor track and field. In addition, the women’s basketball team advanced to the NCAA Final Four for the first time, the softball team made it to the Women’s College World Series and the baseball team advanced to the College World Series for the second straight season.
In all, LSU had 14 of its 20 sports finish the year ranked among the top 25 teams in the nation with nine of those squads finishing their respective seasons ranked in the top 10.
In addition to all of the success in competition, LSU student-athletes enjoyed tremendous success in the classroom as the Tigers boasted four Academic All-Americas and 107 SEC Academic Honor Roll members. Furthermore, 154 LSU student-athletes were awarded the Director’s Cup with another 98 student-athletes being named to the Dean’s List.