These 5 teams were South Carolina’s best for 2022-23 sports year
South Carolina’s athletics teams have their final grades of the 2022-23 sports calendar.
USC finished No. 33 overall and ninth among Southeastern Conference schools in the final standings for this year’s Learfield Cup — a competition among Division I institutions that grades overall success of a college’s athletics programs — that were released Wednesday.
Stanford took top billing nationally, beating out a top five that included Texas, Ohio State, Virginia and Florida. The SEC had 12 of its 14 member institutions finish in the top 50, while only Vanderbilt (No. 52) and Mississippi State (No. 57) were outside that threshold.
The Learfield Cup is graded on a points system that incorporates a program’s finish in varying NCAA championships among its top 15 performing sports. As part of that formula, schools also required to include men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and volleyball.
South Carolina’s top five sports in this year’s Learfield Cup standings were the following:
- Women’s basketball — 83 points (No. 3 nationally)
- Men’s tennis — 73 points (No. 5 nationally)
- Women’s golf — 72.75 (No. 5 nationally)
- Women’s soccer — 64 points (No. 9 nationally)
- Baseball — 64 points (No. 9 nationally)
Included in the 19 sports South Carolina had to submit, neither the men’s basketball nor volleyball teams recorded points as they didn’t qualify for the postseason. Among the other teams to add points to the Gamecocks’ tally included football (53 points), softball (50 points) and the men’s/women’s swimming teams (48).
Other Division I schools in the state of South Carolina earned the following finishes:
- Clemson — 475.5 points (No. 51 nationally)
- Furman — 160.5 points (No. 113 nationally)
- Coastal Carolina — 95.5 points (No. 170 nationally)
- South Carolina State — 50 points (No. 223 nationally)
- College of Charleston — 47.5 points (No. 241 nationally)
- Presbyterian — 25 points (T-No. 261 nationally)
- Charleston Southern — 25 points (T-No. 261 nationally)
This story was originally published June 29, 2023 at 7:00 AM.
