NCAA 4x4

What was up with USC getting passed on the inside on the last turn? Gotta hurt when you are already trying to hold off the world leader and you accidentally let him pass on the inside.

tshakur wrote:

This isn't true. Many different strategies work. In college, and many big international meets, wariner would run 3rd. Different orders work for different people. Some guys are great a chasing, others great at leading. It really all depends on the competition and team.

Bullshit. The *winning* strategy is to put your second best athlete on the front leg, such that you can get ahead of the pile-up that occurs on the handoffs for the 3rd and 4th legs, which cost precious time.

The only reason Wariner would run third is because they had a leadoff they trusted to get out ahead of the pack. Nadolsky has failed at that repeatedly; therefore it is terrible coaching for him to continue to lead off. Leading off 46.6 puts them well-behind everyone else who organized their legs properly.

Bennett-Green, Loxsom, Nadolsky, Gehret is far more sensible. I hate when idiots who have never sprinted in their lives offer up sprint knowledge on here.

4. Penn State 3:01.58

(**Aaron Nadolsky 47.4, **Brandon Bennett-Green 44.8,

*Casimir Loxsom 45.15, **Brady Gehret 44.28);

That is horrific. He cost them a National Championship. You can find ten guys in D3 alone who could split that.

And as far as the leg order, sucka mc is absolutely 100% correct. Having a guy split 47.4 and handoff in dead last will kill you.

Nice to see all of you wannabes who were probably :55 quartermilers posting and running down PSU and Nadolsky. These are the correct splits from the final...

Nadolsky 46.6

BBG 45.5

Lox 45.2

Gehret 44.3

Nadolsky handed off 6th out of 8 teams. He was actually running well until the last 50m when he tied up. people forget that he was hurt the entire season, or he probably would have run :01 faster and been in the 45s, even as a leadoff. The order of BBG, Lox, Nadolsky, and Gehret is intriguing. I am sure that BBG could split 45hi on the leadoff, and Nadolsky would pick up around 1 second on his split, probably in the 45.5-45.8 range...Who knows, PSU could pick up :01 or so on the relay, but why second guess?

The coaches there know what's best and know their guys. They shattered a school record, ran 3:01 TWICE in 3 days (a time that would have won the NCAA 4x4 in some years), and ran a time that would be an Olympic caliber time for any country in the world, save for USA, GB, Canada, Russia, Jamacia, Germany, and maybe an African team or two.

T&FN has it 47.4, handing off 7th. No offense, but I trust them more than you.

No coach who understands anything sprint relays would put their weakest leg BY THREE SECONDS on leadoff. Defending them for that decision is an absolute joke.

..and in case you're curious of my bona fides on this subject, my top split was 45.9 on my A-A DII team. I'm not just some random jerkoff with an opinion.

T&FN has it 47.4, handing off 7th. No offense, but I trust them more than you.

No coach who understands anything sprint relays would put their weakest leg BY THREE SECONDS on leadoff. Defending them for that decision is an absolute joke.

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I agree that you have to go with your number two in the leadoff. You have to get out and compete from the start. Legs two and three can gain ground if you are behind, and your best runner anchors.

I don't see how anyone who has ever sprinted in their life can conclude anything but the following:

1. Nadolsky cost them a NC.

2. Their coaching team was moronic putting him first.

I would have liked to have seen South Plains College in that NCAA final. They ran 3:01.32 on May 5 all by themselves, with 3 freshman and 1 soph (3 American kids). What could they have done with some competition and 4 more weeks to train. They beat LSU head to head indoors in Feb.

Thanks Coach T. Lester for your juco imput

Blinncoach wrote:

I would have liked to have seen South Plains College in that NCAA final. They ran 3:01.32 on May 5 all by themselves, with 3 freshman and 1 soph (3 American kids). What could they have done with some competition and 4 more weeks to train. They beat LSU head to head indoors in Feb.

I had a moderately successful ncaa 400m career, but even if I ran 60 seconds or 45 seconds that doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about. Many great coaches sucked themselves.

Different strategies work at different times. In the 2004 Olympics the order was not like you say it was. In fact, even the Aussies had an order that didn't have their fastest person as anchor.

The South Plains team did this in a MATCH race against the Belgium National team on the track at Texas Tech University. They did this 3:01 race at 3,000+ feet elevation.

The NCAA Meet is run over four days and at the conclusion of day for Florida ran 3:00+. This was done at near sea level. LSU did not win the race.

At the conclusion of the 2012 Juco meet in Leveland,Texas with a mere 3 day meet, South Plains ran only 3:05+ in the finals.

This race was ran at 3,200 feet elevation.

South Plains could not even beat the NJCAA Meet Record of

3:01.89 that was set in 1994.

That timewas run at the end of a four day meet in which runners then were required to run three rounds of the 100, 200, 400, 800 etc.

It appears that the SPC runers can't handle running rounds?

SPC if they ran in Des Moines, would of been behind the following teams.

1. Florida

2. USC

3. Texas A&M

4. Arkansas

5. LSU

6. Miss State