Arizona placed 11th in this year’s Director’s Cup rankings, the school’s best finish in four years.

Schools earn points based on their Division I finishes in postseason competitions.

This year the Wildcats won the softball national championship and placed second in men’s swimming and diving, third in women’s swimming and diving, and fourth in men’s track and field, all leading Arizona to a score of 831.6 points.

The Wildcats finished 18th last year and haven’t been in the top 10 since placing ninth in 2001-2002. Arizona had been in the top 10 for nine consecutive years from 1994-2002 before that.

“”It’s an improvement, and that’s always good,”” Arizona athletics director Jim Livengood said in a press release. “”You want to rank high among peer institutions for overall success. Of course, we want to build on that success and make more strides in the near and distant future.

“”This is one benchmark, for competitive success, and we’re working diligently in that as well as all areas — on the playing fields and courts, in the classroom, and in educating our student-athletes as citizens.””

The Pacific 10 Conference had seven institutions represented among the top 20, including champion Stanford, who won for the 12th straight year. The other schools were No. 2 UCLA, No. 6 California, No. 9 Southern California, No. 13 ASU and No. 17 Washington.