Carolina 7th in final Learfield Directors’ Cup standings
This is the Tar Heels' fifth-consecutive top-10 finish and their eighth top-10 effort in the past nine years.
Carolina baseball’s return to Omaha for the College World Series and a fourth consecutive top-five finish in the NCAA Men’s Golf Championship this spring lifted the University to seventh place in the final 2023-24 Learfield Directors’ Cup standings.
This is the Tar Heels’ fifth-consecutive top-10 finish and their eighth top-10 effort in the past nine years in the all-sports competition measuring NCAA post-season success.
Carolina compiled 1,035.75 points in 18 sports.
University of Texas at Austin won the title with 1,377 points, the third time in the last four years the Longhorns have won the Division I Cup. Texas, Stanford University and Carolina remain the only schools to win the Directors’ Cup in its 30 years of competition.
Carolina’s seventh-place finish marks the 25th time the Tar Heels have placed in the top 10. Only Stanford and University of Florida (with 30 apiece) have more.
The Tar Heels have accounted for 25 of the Atlantic Coast Conference’s 51 all-time finishes in the top 10. This is the also the 25th time Carolina has finished among the top-two ACC teams in the standings.
Led by National Player of the Year Ryleigh Heck, the Tar Heels won the NCAA field hockey championship in the fall to lead Carolina’s scoring with 100 points. First-team All-America outfielder Vance Honeycutt and two-time NCAA regional champion Austin Greaser led baseball and men’s golf, respectively, among five different Tar Heel teams to finish fifth in NCAA post-season play along with men’s indoor track and field and men’s and women’s soccer.
ACC champion and three-sport ACC Athlete of the Year Parker Wolfe led men’s cross country to sixth place at nationals, and men’s basketball and women’s tennis placed ninth for a total of nine top-10 programs.
Wolfe added an individual national title in outdoor track in the 5,000 meters. Combined, the men’s cross country, indoor and outdoor track teams amassed 188.50 points.
Three other Tar Heel teams – women’s basketball, women’s lacrosse and women’s swimming and diving (which featured two-time NCAA diving champion Aranza Vazquez Montaño) – had top-20 finishes.
Carolina’s average finish in the 30 years of the Directors’ Cup is No. 7 (the next-best ACC average finish is 15th by University of Virginia).
