The Wolverine

August 2018

The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports

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40 THE WOLVERINE AUGUST 2018 BY ANDREW VAILLIENCOURT M ichigan athletics had a record-setting year, w i n n i n g 1 2 t o t a l conference champi- onships — four in the regular season and eight via conference tournaments. It's both a school and Big Ten record, tying the mark set by U-M in 2004-05. The year-long campaign featured glorious wins over rivals, an unlikely postseason hero, heartbreaking defeats and memorable turn- arounds. Here's a breakdown on what the Wolverines accomplished over the past year: DIRECTORS' CUP For the second straight year, Michi- gan finished No. 6 in the Learfield Directors' Cup standings. The rank- ings set out to determine the most successful athletic departments in the country, weighing each sport — both men's and women's — equally. The top 19 sports from each school are counted, with men's and women's basketball, baseball and volleyball au- tomatically counted for each school. After those four sports, only the next 15 highest scores are counted. The higher a team finished nationally, the more points it earned. U-M ended with 1,131 points, trailing No. 1 Stanford (1,442 points), No. 2 UCLA (1,326 points), No. 3 Florida (1,216 points), No. 4 USC (1,147 points) and No. 5 Texas (1,143.25 points). Stanford has won the Direc- tors' Cup 24 years in a row, dat- ing back to 1994-95. With its sixth-place finish, U-M ranked first among all Big Ten schools. Ohio State checked in at No. 7 and Penn State at No. 12. Michigan State was next at 50th. Michigan's top perform- ing teams were men's basket- ball (second place, 90 points), men's ice hockey (third place, 83 points), women's field hockey (third place, 83 points), women's swimming (fourth place, 80 points) and men's wrestling (fourth place, 77.5 points). It's the third consecutive year that Michigan has finished in the top six, and the 16th time in 25 years the school has accomplished that feat. 2017-18 SUPERLATIVES Michigan Athletics Had Many Performances To Remember 1993-94 — 9th 1994-95 — 7th 1995-96 — 5th 1996-97 — 11th (tie) 1997-98 — 5th 1998-99 — 6th 1999-00 — 3rd 2000-01 — 4th 2001-02 — 6th 2002-03 — 4th 2003-04 — 2nd 2004-05 — 4th 2005-06 — 24th 2006-07 — 4th 2007-08 — 3rd 2008-09 — 5th 2009-10 — 25th 2010-11 — 15th 2011-12 — 10th 2012-13 — 4th 2013-14 — 13th 2014-15 — 19th 2015-16 — 3rd 2016-17 — 6th 2017-18 — 6th Michigan's Directors' Cup Finishes COACHES OF THE YEAR PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN PHOTOGRAPHY Female Sport Coach Of The Year MIKE BOTTOM, Women's Swimming and Diving After an illustrious career as the Michigan men's swimming and diving coach, Bottom took on the women's job in addition to the men's in 2012-13. This year, his women's team went undefeated (10-0) in dual meets, won the Big Ten for the third consecutive season and fin- ished in fourth place nationally — the program's highest finish in 22 years. It was also the third-highest placement in school history. No Big Ten team had finished in the top four since U-M did so in 1996. Bottom was named the 2018 Big Ten Women's Swimming and Diving Coach of the Year for the first time. He's won the award five times on the men's side. Michigan scored 1,465 points at the Big Ten championships, win- ning by a 312.5-point margin, the Big Ten's largest margin of victory since 2011. Since taking over, Bottom has steadily improved the program. In his first season, the Wolverines placed sixth in the conference and 36th na- tionally. Now, they have placed in the top 11 in the country each of the past three years, in addition to their three Big Ten titles.

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