UCSB men's cross country vs UCONN women's basketball on ESPN

Male Baller wrote:

As a result, they aren't used to playing against people that can jump.

Um, we're talking about mostly white distance runners here. They probably have a 40" vertical combined between five of them.

Before this goes any further here is what has just been said on our facebook page:

"To all the fans, haters, and everyone in between,

Before this group got any bigger we wanted to tell you that we took some severe liberties when creating the description of this group. We are ecstatic with the support we have received; good or bad. However we have not been in contact with ESPN or UCONN's athletic department. I do know this though, the UCONN girls would love to come out to California. This does not mean the event is "fake". We are going to do our best to make this event actually happen, and hope that you will continue to support us. Also we want everyone to know that this event is all in good spirit, and that we would donate whatever proceeds could come from it to charity. We are truly sorry if we got anyones hopes up too high, but trust me no ones hopes are higher than ours.

Thanks,

Scott and the UCSB men's cross country team"

And now to respond to some of the previous posts:

First to disgruntled old balls: We are training our asses off, no one is more bummed than me that we didn't make it to nationals.

People who are negative:

there's no need.

People who are positive:

please keep up the support

We fully understand that the Women of UCONN have devoted a huge part of their life to basketball as we all here at UCSB cross country have done to running. I think this event would be insanely entertaining, and once again its all in good fun and love of competition. Whatever advantages the women of UCONN have on the court I cant guarantee you they will not out hustle us. Charles Barkley may claim not to be a role model off the court, but he is our biggest role model on the court.

Thanks for listening,

Scott Smith

I heard those boys are nice on the court!! Talented back court, athletic swingmen, and their big man is a Killer!He's is a cross between dwight howard, arvydas sabonis, and a young Karl Malone.

By the way

Thank you to Male Baller to providing a well thought out scouting report for both teams. The prediction was hilarious, and you nailed our gameplan exactly.

Who are you?

He Might be this guy?

http://ucsbgauchos.cstv.com/sports/m-xc/mtt/smith_scott00.html

this is so phoney like UCONN is really going to fly their team about 3 thousand miles to play a group of guys with no basketball credentials.

this is kind of like the university of iowa wrestling team challenging the ethiopian womens cross country team to a cross country race, and the iowa team saying well we had 3-4 guys who ran cross country in high school, so i think we can win.

why dont they go to the womens coaching office at UC Santa Barbara and challenge there schools womens team to a game and tell us how that goes, of course the UCSB womens team is nothing like UCONN in basketball, but if the cross country team can win that by about 50 points then they may have a chance against UCONN.

i am sure boise state would have liked to have 1 more football game last year and play alabama and that game would be competitive and WAY OVER 1 million people would want to see it, and the tv stations would have all wanted to cover it, but it is probably not that simple as 2 teams wanting to play and having fans wanting to see it to make it happen.

Let's face it, the entire state of CT is a joke. I mean, their #1 sport is women's basketball? Really?

Pathetic. Just pathetic. Does anyone in that state have any testosterone? I mean, other than the obvious majority of the female baseketaball players.

As posted earlier, I read about a the fair weather fans of New England. That is shown here in this topic. Nobody showed up for Uconn men's games this year. I wonder why?

You could take the five best players from ALL of NCAA cross country and they would not score half the points of the UCONN women.

You have never played ball if you cannot understand or appreciate the talent of those women.

They would hurt the boys, and I mean hurt them!

not kilgore wrote:

You could take the five best players from ALL of NCAA cross country and they would not score half the points of the UCONN women.

You have never played ball if you cannot understand or appreciate the talent of those women.

They would hurt the boys, and I mean hurt them!

I would have to agree with not kilgore. I know a girl who plays NCAA D1 ball for a mid major school. A couple of my friends challenged her to one on one, and she wiped the court with every one of them. I really doubt these guys will have a chance at beating the UConn women....

...BUT!!! If they do, consider what it will do to women's athletics.

It seems like they might get the facebook members, though.

Give them another 1000 days at the rate they are going and they will be right there.

Need a scouting report on the Gauchos?

plaintiff wrote:

It seems like they might get the facebook members, though.

Give them another 1000 days at the rate they are going and they will be right there.

With help from running sites like this one and Dye I would I expect more runners will join even after last nights denouement. Can we gain critical mass and get it started toward going viral?

I say to LetsRun:

LETSTRY!

PS read the list of members bet you find some famous runner on it!!

I ran D1 XC in the Pac-10 in the early '90s.

I played pick up ball fairly regularly, could dunk barely, and was decent on the court.

One day during open gym, our school's women's team showed up and called "next."

Honestly, I wasn't too thrilled about playing them. A no win scenario. We beat them, but only by a bucket or two. They had another player in line who had 'next,' and so they got to run it back and play us again. We won again, but very narrowly. Guys were playing pretty damn hard. I'm tall, so ended up with their center, who was not as fast or fit or athletic, but was damn strong, had good footwork, used her position well, and didn't make turnovers. She promptly, and intentionally, busted me in the nose with her elbow. How am I supposed to react to that?

Anyway, this was a bottom half of the league, Pac-10 women's team. Good, but certainly no UConn. And honestly, we were not the best pick up team you would find in the gym.

So, UCSB guys, if you can legitimately ball --- like show up to open gym and hold down the 'A' court, winning against all comers for an hour or so during prime time, I'd guess you'll be fine. If not, it might be pretty tough.

Also, would this game be with ref's, etc. Understanding how to play with ref's, playing with foul trouble, keeping the other team out of the bounus, etc... is a bit of a transition from pick up ball. If you get a choice, I'd recommend pick up ball, with the men's size ball. But you already know this stuff.

And if you really want this match-up, get some plane tickets out to UConn, ask the guys on their XC team to put you up for a night, and meet the lady huskies during open gym. The ESPN thing sounds somewhat unlikely, to be honest.

Good luck! You'd be playing for all of us!

a blunt point guard wrote:

plaintiff wrote:

It seems like they might get the facebook members, though.

Give them another 1000 days at the rate they are going and they will be right there.

With help from running sites like this one and Dye I would I expect more runners will join even after last nights denouement. Can we gain critical mass and get it started toward going viral?

I say to LetsRun:

LETSTRY!

PS read the list of members bet you find some famous runner on it!!

DyeStat is published by ESPN RISE

The conversion factor I like to use is this - world class female athletes are about on the same level as talented high school males.

It's not perfect but it works pretty well. Look at 2009's world leaders for the women:

10.64 - 100 meters

21.88 - 200

48.83 - 400

1:55 - 800

3:56 - 1500 (4:14 mile equivalent)

8:30 - 3k (9:10 2 mile equivalent)

14:33 - 5k

Some of these are obviously better marks than others but you get the point. In my home state a boy running these times will either be all-state or even state champion, depending on which event. Not an All-American, but still talented.

Back to UCONN - are they a world class basketball team? I think so. They've won 72 games in a row, all by double digits. So far this year they've beaten #2 Stanford by 12, #11 FSU by 19, #7 UNC by 41, #3 Notre Dame by 24, #7 Duke by 33, #8 WVU by 33, #24 St. Johns by 14, #12 Oklahoma by 16, #11 Georgetown by 22, #8 ND by 15, #7 ND by 15, #8 WVU by 28. I bet they could compete in the WNBA right now. Why not? They have Maya Moore and Tina Charles. They might not win the title but they could compete, sure.

So they are a world class female team, which means they are comparable to a talented high school male team. And not just talented, but potentially all-state caliber (obviously depending on the state).

So unless the UCSB XC team thinks they could step down to high school right now and win a state championship somewhere again talented high school boys, it's going to be a blowout.

By the way, are there any other ways we can test my theory that world class women = talented high school boys other than comparing track and field marks? Any other sports?

equation man wrote:

By the way, are there any other ways we can test my theory that world class women = talented high school boys other than comparing track and field marks? Any other sports?

Actually, it's a great theory.

My high school's soccer team (a perennial state champ winner/contender) would regularly scrimmage the U.S. Women's National Team when they were training in Florida. This during the days of Mia Hamm, etc in the mid to late 90s. We'd usually lose, but the game would always be close - never more than a two goal advantage. We won a couple times when the top stars weren't playing. (I will say though that the game was much cleaner than regular soccer games; not because people were going easy on the women - but that the officials explained before hand that since there was a world cup and lots of money at stake, any b.s. would result in automatic red cards - no yellows.)

equation man wrote:

By the way, are there any other ways we can test my theory that world class women = talented high school boys other than comparing track and field marks? Any other sports?

I think the best evidence comes from UConn themselves, and other elite women's programs while we're at it.

As someone mentioned earlier in this threat, UConn used to (still does?) have a group of male students who practice against the women's team, all ex-high school basketball players who weren't good enough to play D1, but probably good enough to play D3.

Sports Illustrated did an article about them a few years ago I think. NYTimes did an article too:

I guess if the UCSB guys think they could step on the court and beat a DIII basketball team, they should try that first.

Otherwise, they'll just confirm the notion that runners are just skinny runts who have an overinflated sense of their own abilities and self-worth.

Yeah, I don't know, whenever I have played with top-level women's teams, there is a ban on dunking and most shot blocking. Everything is supposed to be below the rim. Even in that article you posted, they mention that. A really good male athlete would block tons of shots, I am telling you from experience.

The theory about top-level women's athletes being about equal to top-level high school men is a good one. However, I will say this - many top level female hoopsters are not particularly amazing physical athletes. They are very, very fundamentally skilled, to be sure, but if they were going against three guys that could dunk - which is pretty normal for a high-level intramural team.... none of those women have any experience playing with guys that play above (or even near) the rim. Keep in mind that a 6'3" woman is a goliath in the paint, while a 6'3" guy grew up playing as a two or a three guard.