Dartmouth

Amen! The current system has always left a few good teams home and let in teams that shouldn't be there. Bring on the super-regionals! It's not perfect, but it's a far, far better system than we have now. And don't make us wait two years! Do it next year.

Whoa there tough nuts. First of all, I dont give a crap what process you use, Dartmouth should be in. This process is crap! The next process is crap, and the next process is crap. Whatever you are going to do there will be mistakes. What about this. Villinova did not race till Big East. They won, then ran at regionals. Say instead of winning regionals, say one of their top guys falls down and get hurt (god forbid) and they finish in third overall? Does that mean that Villinova doesn't deserve to run at Nationals? I think it is clear to every single team in the Nation that 'Nova is one of the best teams. So just because O'Sullivan decided to train his team through all the other bullcrap races doesn't mean they are not one of the best teams. Something has to be done and I do not know if Super Regionals is it. I think that Pre-Nats should not change however, because it is a chance for teams to get on the championship course and get a measure of what they have to do to prepare. I think if they had a seeded race that would make it more exciting. I do not, however, think that by doing well at that meet you should be granted any points for goign to Nats. I dont know, the system is really bad. I feel bad for teams like Dartmouth and LaSalle ect, that got extremely screwed.

Dartmouth Fan, you are missing the point. That is how the system is setup. Pre-nats is setup to view the course for teams and for the host to run a big meet before nationals. But the real reason teams go is TO SCORE POINTS against teams not in their region. Any good D1 coach should know how this system works, if you are not a powerhouse team like Stanford who can run the B team and can auto qualify out of regionals, then you need to go to Roy Griak and PreNats to score points against teams not in your region. You do this if your region is strong and you might not be one of the auto qualifiers in order to get points for an at large bid. Arkanas, have a strong team and a weak region, they don't go to pre-nats or griak, they don't need to. They can train to peak at the NCAA meet.

I have nothing against Dartmouth, ASU, Caly-Poly, Portland or any team that may think they got screwed. They did not. The system has been setup like this for 3 years, everyone knows the rules. I think it is great the Nova trains that way, and that is the way it should be, but the system is not currently setup that way. I don't agree with it either, but until it is changed teams have to adjust to it. Look at the Big Ten, MAC and other GL region teams, they played the game and cashed in big time. There is a plan out there for a Super district which does away with the chasing of at large points.

Nova played the game and knew they could get away with not racing pre-nats unlike in prior years where they have raced pre-nats. But they did have at least one at-large point from Big East by Providence that was virtually guaranteed. If they had not had any points and one of their guys had fallen then they did not deserve to be at nationals. This is how the system is set up and thats how you play the game. They were taking a calculated risk betting they would auto qualify. Its a risk that isn't too great for them and in the end it played out. If they hadn't gotten in it would have been a shame, but they would not have "deserved" to go. They knew what the rules for qualifying were and how to best accomplish that.

And they did travel to try and get some points, but Blincoe was hurt at that point. They traveled to Indiana state where they would be racing Texas and Alabama. Actually if you think about it 'Nova helped to screw a lot of teams by losing to Texas there and thus helped Texas in to the meet pushing Texas A&M in as well. Regardless though Dartmouth would not have gotten in as they had ZERO points. Dartmouth fans has been crying the most of anyone about the system for the past 4 days. No one is saying the system is totally fair, but all the things you keep pointing out time and time again have been pointed out in prior years by teams such as Cal Poly, Penn State, Oregon. The system is what it is, teams get the shaft. Shut up already.

ROTFLMAO! That scenario sure makes you realize that things could be a lot worse!

As far as Dartmouth goes, tough titty. Yeah, they're better than a number of the teams that got in, but that crap happens every year. It's just a hard lump when it's *your* team.

Texas did not run at Indiana St Inv. and never raced Nova. Nebraska beat Nova at that meet. Try again.

Your right about Texas at Indiana State. My bad. But regardless Nova beat Alabama, and Tennessee there and along with their win over Providence at the Big East had 3 at large points and would have gotten in as long as they got 3rd or better in the region. They played the way the system dictates and got in.

At least the Dartmouth guys are the Number 1 seed in the NIT. WHere is that meet by the way?

If anything, the polls are political and the qualifying standards are not. The polls don't mean anything for making it to nats. They are just what a small number of people think. An example is Notre Dame and Michigan State. They tied at districts. Thus, they should be ranked about the same. If you check the polls, you'll find otherwise. It just shows the polls don't mean anything.

I don't know about all this. All I can say is that Div 2 has a system while not perfect seems to stop any bickering and was wondering why D1 can't use the same system. Each region get 2 teams regardless of what region they are. Then depending on the teams that make it into the top ten and the region they are from it is their region that gets another team bid for nationals. Anyway I don't know think about it rip me a new asshole I don't care it's my two cents worth