Predicting the Big 12 was easy in years past. Put the Colorado men at #1 and move on to another conference, as the Buffaloes have won every Big 12 XC title in history - 12 straight.
Last year, the Buffs won but then were beaten by Oklahoma State at Nationals. This year's OSU team is even stronger as they have four of the top 6 returners from the Big 12 meet last year - plus they've added the best freshman class in the country.
Scoring Meet Removing Last Year's Seniors: 1. Ok. State (30) 2. Colorado (48) 3. Iowa State (92) 4. Texas A&M (137) 5. Missouri (143) 6. Oklahoma (179) 7. Texas Tech (193) 8. Nebraska (197) 9. Baylor (276) 10. Kansas State (incomplete score) 11. Texas (incomplete score) 12. Kansas (incomplete score)
2008 PRE NCAA Results Merged Conference Scoring:
OSU
1,4,6,14,17
42
Colorado
2,9,10,11,13
45
Iowa State
3,5,7,16,18
49
Missouri
8,21,25,26,28
108
Texas
12, 19,31,47
138
Nebraska
15,34,35,38, 43
155
Kansas
32,40,41,48
202
K-State
51,53,54,55,56
269
Last year at Big 12s, the Cowboys put all five in the top 15 and yet they still lost to Colorado. 4 of those five are back as is their sixth man from conference,Daniel Watts, who was 25th at Big 12s and 42nd at NCAAs in the team scoring. From NCAAs, the Cowboys return four guys from the top 48 in the team scoring plus they are adding in super frosh German Fernandez and Colby Lowe.
Add in Kenyan John Kosgei, whose time at Pre-Nats would have placed him 15th in the merged results, and it seems to us that this is the team to beat at NCAAs. Oklahoma State will win Big 12s. The question is who will finish 2nd. Colorado returns way fewer points from last year than Iowa State and even though CU ran poorly at Pre-NCAAs, they still were better than Iowa State. The question is, where does Texas A&M place? Colorado is ranked 16th, A&M is 18th. A&M didn't run Pre-NCAAs but they did
run Notre Dame. At Notre Dame, the Aggies finished 10 points behind Tulsa but ahead of Butler and Providence. Well, Tulsa finished 51 points ahead of CU in the merged results at Pre-NCAAs. Considering Pre-NCAAs is roughly 3.5 times as large as Notre Dame, it seems that A&M would have been maybe 35 points behind Tulsa at Pre-NCAAs.
Thus, CU and A&M on paper right now are very close. We'll give the edge though to the Buffs. They always peak when it matters most. Thus if we give the top two spots to
OSU and Colorado, it seems that the battle for third is very close between Iowa State and Texas A&M. Based on returners from last year, the edge goes to Iowa State, but A&M has been running well of late; they won the Chile Pepper Invite, so we'll give them the slight edge.
The only other question about this conference is where Texas fits in. The Longhorns were third last year but only return three from that team. Kyle Miller is the 3rd returner and Jake Morse 11th, but Habben Berhane is only the 41st returner. Morse and Miller didn't run at Pre-Nats, where the Longhorns were embarrassed, but even if they run and run well, the 'Horns appear to be in trouble. No way should they be nationally ranked. They might - and we say might - be a little bit better than Missouri, but they aren't any better than Iowa State or A&M.
In these previews, we're
really focused on the the top teams and who is going to win. We try to not be overly negative, but we do have to point out that the bottom of this conference is, well, not very competitive. Kansas State just looked awful at Pre-Nats, where the Wildcats' top guy ran 26:14 and beat one guy from any other Big 12 team. The rest of their guys were all over 27:00 and their fifth guy ran 28:35 as they had five of the bottom 11 in the entire race. It's hard to fathom it, but K-State's top woman,Beverly Ramos, who ran 20:20.6 for 6k (on pace for a 27:08 8k), would almost certainly have been in the top 5 for the K-State men.
If that was their varsity, we'd guarantee that they'd occupy the basement, but Oklahoma may not even score at Big 12s. They only ran 4 guys at the Okla. State Jamboree, wheretheir top guy ran 26:56.
