While we're getting better at getting the scores up immediately for our prediction contest, we're not quite as good as getting up our recaps. So with a month and a half delay we give the winners of our NCAA Prediction Contest their due.

And as we said in our concurrent Footlocker prediction contest recap the winners of our contest are definitely passionate about running and pretty cool people.

Winner of the team prediction contest was Matthew Call. Matt sent us a pretty informative email which we're including below. We especially like it because it reiterates what a lot of you know, LetsRun.com is the #1 productivity killer at work. (We've had owners of companies who are runners email us and joke that they should ban their computers from accessing LetsRun.com because it hurts their employees productivity. We would like to point out we're keeping their employees happy. But they're probably not going to quit their jobs in this economy anyway).

Here's his email:

I'm a 1998 graduate of Gonzaga.  After realizing I was going to weigh 200 pounds when I got out of college if I didn't start exercising, I went out for the track team my sophomore year.  I was one of the slower runners on a slow team, but had a lot of fun in Spokane. (On a side not, I'm excited to see what Pat Tyson can do at Gonzaga in the next few years).  For the past 9 years I've been a commercial real estate appraiser in Portland.  I've also been an assistant coach for cross country and track at La Salle High School in Milwaukie, Oregon for the past 11 years.  
 
Regarding my picking strategy it was basically, make my picks and hope to get lucky.  In college a few friends and I had our own, annual ncaa xc prediction contest, but back then I spent a lot more time pouring over results.  My picks relied a lot on your preview, message board threads, scanning the regional results, and the selected other meets I'd seen results for over the course of the year.  I'm most familiar with the west coast schools, so I guess it was good that a lot of west coast teams fared well this year.  
 
While I'm not sure it helps my productivity at work, I always enjoy your website.  Thanks for putting on the contest.

 

Winner of the individual prediction contest was Scott Crews. Crews is a member of (but did not run at NCAAs) the 21st place at NCAAs, NC State Wolfpack, so he no doubt he has some inside insights onto the collegiate scene. Crews knew the ACC women would do well at NCAAs and was coached by a woman, Cynthia Spangler, at Rockbridge County High School in Virgina, so he's not a sexist pig like the majority at LetsRun.com. And don't worry, winning our contests to the best of our knowledge does not affect one's eligibility. We've had numerous high school and collegiate runners take home prizes and even emailed the NCAA about it.

*To check your scores click here, to see the top scores click here