DII Regionals

Midwest - Walsh, Bellarmine

West - Simon Fraser, Alaska Anchorage, Academy of Art

South Central - West Texas A&M, CSU-Pueblo

Last spot hard to determine. Dallas Baptist has won over MSSU but the Saginaw win over Malone is huge. Pomona, Duluth, and all other region #4s have no quality wins (direct or indirect) over any top 3 auto-qualifiers.

Where did West Texas come from?

Wingate indirect

https://m.tfrrs.org/xc_results/13169

And all baby regionals competitors received participation ribbons

Women's At-Large Team Qualifiers (in order of priority): Simon Fraser, Northern Michigan, Minnesota-Duluth, UC-Colorado Springs, Southern Indiana, Malone, Oklahoma Baptist, Dallas Baptist

That's 3 from the Midwest, 2 from the Central, 2 from the South Central, and 1 from the West.

I haven't looked at any individuals yet or the men's side of things, but if I'm understanding the scoring system correctly, I think that's how it's going down team-wise for the women.

So I'm working on figuring out who the At-Large individual qualifiers are for the women. From the qualifying criteria:

"The next eight individuals will be selected at-large. There is no limit to the number of at-large

individuals that may be selected from the same region. The top individual from each region

not receiving an automatic qualifying spot and not on a qualifying team, will be compared

head-to-head using the same model as in the at-large team selection process. Place at the

regional meet and strength of region are factored into the formula when comparing at-large

individuals using the following equation:

[# of team qualifiers from the region] / [Individual regional placing] = Individual score ratio

The individual with the highest score using the above equation will be selected first. This will

account for and reward individuals competing well in stringer regions, based on the number of

teams that region qualifies to championships. When an individual receives an at-large

selection, the next non-qualifying individual from that region will move up to the consideration

round of eight individuals."

So when it says the individuals will be compared using the same model as in the at-large team selection, is it only talking about comparing the top possible individual from each region using only the region strength point system, or is it talking about using the point system for head to head quality wins and such as well? If it's using the head-to-head quality wins, I'm not going to try and figure that out by hand. If it's using only the region strength point system, there is a flaw in the system because of tiebreakers.

For example, I figured the at-large individuals with only using the region strength point system. I've got 7 at-large individuals:

Carr, Southwest Baptist (5/9=0.556)

Workman, Wheeling Jesuit (3/6=0.5)

Hiatt, Wingate (3/6=0.5)

Gillick, Humboldt State (4/8=0.5)

Mortensen, Washburn (5/11=0.454)

Renner, Fort Lewis (5/11=0.454)

Verhees, UC San Diego (4/9=0.444)

Out of the next 8 contestants, the next highest score is 0.4286, and 3 individuals have that because they placed 7th in a region that qualified 3 teams (3/7=0.4286). Those three are Sillivant of Alabama-Huntsville, Fulkroad of Pitt.-Johnstown, and Truitt of North Georgia.

In the qualifying criteria, it says tie breakers for the last individual qualifier will go to the individual that places the highest at his or her regional meet. With the nature of the scoring, if the last possible qualifiers have the same score, chances are that is because they received the same place. Those three runners for the last spot have never raced head-to-head this season, so you can't compare them that way. Do you have to look at quality wins for each of those runners against other individual qualifiers?

Can anyone help me out here? Am I missing something? Of course, all these individual predictions are assuming that I predicted all of the at-large teams correctly as well, so I'm not sure about that.

MSSU beat Malone at Lewis Crossover, so would that mean that Dallas Baptist beating MSSU would be a stronger win than Saginaw beating Malone?

DII Running wrote:

Where did West Texas come from?

The west side of Texas I believe.

Here's what I've got for men's at-large teams:

Central: Minnesota-Duluth, Sioux Falls

Midwest: Walsh, Bellarmine

West: Simon Fraser, Alaska Anchorage, Academy of Art, Cal Poly Pomona

As someone else already pointed out, I'm not sure where West Texas A&M came from in the first predictions. As far as I can tell, they don't have any quality wins. All they needed was one, so they screwed themselves and CSU-Pueblo out of a spot. Coming down to the last qualifying spot, none of the 8 teams had a quality win, so it went to the point ratio. I've got Cal Poly Pomona with the last spot because they were right behind Academy of Art at the West Regional (174/178=0.978). I believe that puts Western Washington as the first team out.

Would West Texas beating CSU-Pueblo, Dallas Baptist, and Rogers State count as a quality win?

What would make you think that the West is only getting in four teams? Based off rankings it's clearly the strongest region. I don't see anyway that Cal State Marcos isn't going. You are talking about the 12th ranked team in the country before conference.

I see the at large bids as - Simon Fraser, San Marcos, Minn-Duluth, Oklahoma Baptist, UC-Springs, Dallas Baptist, Northern Michigan and Souther Indiana.

Last two teams out Malone and Cal Poly Pomona.

I could see one of the two above beating out OBU or Dallas Baptist, or Southern Indiana.

I have the following regions as the strongest.

West with 5 teams getting in.

Central with 5 teams getting in.

Then I see essentially the South Central and Midwest as even, both with 5 teams getting in. It kind of matters on how the committee see's Western State.

That for me would leave the individuals as

#9 Verhees, west

#10 benoit-bucher, west

#9 Carr, central

#12 Rufener, west

#11 Mortensen, central

#11 Renner, central

#14 Roberts, west

#13 Feist, mid-west

I didn't workout a formula like you - just eye balled.

I would be very curious to see what individuals you'd come up with, if you switched your regional strength emphasis.

Let me know what you think.

The south central and west are probably about equal in strength looking at rankings. Also a 5 team can’t get out if the 4th place team in front of them doesn’t get out first

I didn't see any quality wins for Cal St San Marcos which is why they didn't get in by my eyes. I'm counting a quality win as beating any team that auto qualified or beating any team that they were going head to head against among the 8 at-large teams in consideration.

Here are my men's at-large individual qualifiers based on my team predictions:

Central: Pasch, Newkirk

East: Sims

Midwest: Michalski, Holowaty

South: Ormsby

West: Wise

Again, just like the women, that's 7 and leaves me with 3 individuals that have the same point ratio at .333 (Snyder from Atlantic, Hansen from Central, Kipkoech from South). No idea how to break that tie.

Simon Fraser would be the 4th place team - that would definitely be in.

So that head to head stuff matters more than overall national ranking?

So the way I read it, is that a conference strength is solely based off of how many teams get in? So in a theoretical situation, where one region gets five teams in that are #1-#5 in the nation - they will get the same rating as a team who gets five schools in ranked #20-#25?

There's not one individual from the Atlantic, East, South East, or South that should qualify imo for the women. 6th place in one of those conference couldn't crack top 20 in a stronger one from an eye ball test.

Breaking Individual Ties

If a situation occurs where two or more individuals are vying for the last qualifying spot, the tie will be broken by selecting the individual with the highest individual placement at his/her regional.

Correct. National ranking has nothing to do with this qualifying system. The first priority is head-to-head competition and wins against common competitors. It's not about eyeballing the regions to see who's the strongest. This system removes most subjectivity.

Well by my predictions (which could be totally off), all three women vying for the last qualifying spot placed 7th and two out of the three men placed 9th. That's what I'm talking about as far as breaking ties. The rules don't give the next tiebreaker.

On the women's side, here's how I see it:

Simon Fraser, Northern Michigan first two teams in.

After that, I think the next two teams in are actually Cal State San Marcos and Cal Poly Pomona, who by beating WWU and UCSD at regionals hold second degree wins over Duluth who lost to both those teams at Griak.

Duluth has wins over UC-Colo Springs, Academy of Art and Southern Indiana from the Lewis cross-over, so I think they're the 5th team in.

UC-Colo Springs has wins over Academy of Art and Southern Indiana from Lewis so I think they're the 6th team in.

That leaves Academy of Art, Southern Indiana, Dallas Baptist and Oklahoma Baptist as the final 4 teams for the last two spots. Academy of Art would go in before Southern Indiana since they beat them head to head at Lewis, but it gets a little tricky trying to figure out who gets in first between Art, Dallas and Oklahoma. Dallas Baptist and Oklahoma Baptist beat each other once and both have wins over Pitt. St. who was second at Griak, which seems like it would be handy against Art, but maybe not. If it came down to point-gap-ratio, it looks like the order would be OK Baptist, Dallas Baptist then Academey of Art. So I'm not entirely certain, but I think Dallas and Oklahoma Baptist will be the 7th and 8th teams in, with Academy of Art and Southern Indiana being the first two teams out.

Just speculation though, not completely confident in the assessment.