D3 South Region 2007

Welcome to letsrun, I guess. I didn't have any problem with what you said and was happy to have someone from Tyler weigh in. It was pretty obvious from Tyler's year long results that the 4 and 5 guys had off days, espcially the 5 guy.

although I detest the post race excuse game, I will acknowledge that one of Tyler's runners puked all over the course at the 7200 mark...it was about 20 feet in front of me and he didn't just cough and spit...it was a frickin' waterfall!

gulls wrote:

platteville would have won the south region

there are many d3 schools that would have won the south region

Hey I'd gladly give away my spot if they were in the south region and had beaten us. But they aren't, and they didn't. So what do you want? Fine the south region sucks, congratulations for making an astute observation. What do you want from the kids who race in the South Region? Go complain to the NCAA.

No! The South region does not suck. Rhodes and Emory will not finish in last and second to last at nationals. Admittedly it's a weaker region, but it does not suck.

As for UT-Tyler having a bad day last Saturday and being a better team than how they raced, well maybe that's true and maybe it's not. It doesn't matter now. This is why they hold the regional race instead of just awarding the automatic bid to the 2 top ranked teams in the region. For the top ranked team to have a bad race is the kind of break the lesser ranked teams hope for.

Having said all that, I think UT-Tyler deserved an at-large bid. But again, it doesn't matter now.

With a team like Rhodes you have to look at who is in their top 5, it's not like they have an army of backups to step in and run 26:30....They didn't run their best team until regionals. People keep citing that UW-LC race like it's a regional, but look at who Rhodes' fifth guy was there...some freshman. At regions they instead had Warth running better than usual as their 5 and Handelman coming back from injury (I'm guessing) to be their 4th. They ran much better at regionals than at previous meets. Lewis and Mahoney are racing better. UT Tyler probably should have beaten them, but like people have said many times before, that's why we run the race. If the people in Wisconsin are really tired of not quite making it to Nats, they should just transfer to a southern school and be done with it. Come on down guys, it's great! You can wear short shorts in January.

Oh and as soon as Emory and Rhodes come in last and second to last, I will come back on here and apologize to everyone. But I've got 10 bucks that says they don't.

poooooo. You may be right about Rhodes, but they still lost by 200 points, and the selection committee is never going to analyze a southern team to see who ran at UW-L vs. Regionals.

If the south wants some respect, they need to key off northern meets. I know that's difficult w/ teams from Texas, but the VAs, Rhodes, and Emorys not only need to race up north (Oshkosh/LaCrosse, NYU, Paul Short, etc.), but bring their A team, or else it's going to be very difficult to get any consideration for an at large.

Name: wrote:

Kartelite. . In your situation, and the one I described, none of the athletes made any impact on the team (I'm not trying to be harsh, just honest).

South man wrote:

No! The South region does not suck. Rhodes and Emory will not finish in last and second to last at nationals. Admittedly it's a weaker region, but it does not suck.

arguing that the south is not weak by claiming that it's teams will not finish last and 2nd to last at nationals does not say much for the south

nobody said it wasn't weak, just that those two teams are not completely undeserving of being there.

Just to clarify, I am from UT Tyler, and I too agree that we deserved 3rd, because well...that's what we got, that is the reason why the race is run, we got out-matched. So just to make sure that we're on the same page, UT Tyler got what they got, period.

BUT, I do believe that the South is getting better and will be a lot better next year...

hopefully.

"arguing that the south is not weak by claiming that it's teams will not finish last and 2nd to last at nationals does not say much for the south"

Did I say the south is not weak? I said the region does not suck. As for placing at nationals, how high would like them to place to earn your respect? First and second? Does that mean you think all the teams from third to last all suck?

The fact is that Rhodes and Emory earned their spots at nationals fair and square and deserve to be there, like all the teams running, including whoever comes in last.

And yes, Rhodes and Emory deserve to be there more than the teams from other regions (Plattsville or whoever) that didn't make the cut at there regional meet. Those are the rules that are in place. If you don't like it, work to get the rules changed. Maybe you'd prefer a BCS style system where the nationally ranked #1 and #2 could run a dual meet to determine the national champion.

You may have deserved 3rd last Saturday, but you also deserved an at-large bid based on how well you did all season.

Platteville did make it...

. . . or whoever.

You're right, of course. Plattesville did make it. I forgot that fact in reading the discussion on how they would have won the south region and how Rhodes and Emory are so undeserving. But my mistake takes nothing away from the point I was making. My congratulations and apologies to Plattesville.

South Man writes:

"With a team like Rhodes you have to look at who is in their top 5, it's not like they have an army of backups to step in and run 26:30....They didn't run their best team until regionals. People keep citing that UW-LC race like it's a regional, but look at who Rhodes' fifth guy was there...some freshman. At regions they instead had Warth running better than usual as their 5 and Handelman coming back from injury (I'm guessing) to be their 4th. They ran much better at regionals than at previous meets."

Clearly, Rhodes is a better team than they showed at LAX, but only because their #4 runner (Handelman) didn't run at LAX. However, if he did run at LAX, and if we generously slot him in next to Moore (their #3), Rhodes only goes up 40 points, which puts them right with Hamline (who did not qualify) and still behind Luther and Wartburg (which did qualify). Now you can argue that everyone on their team has improved (from Moore all the way down to Warthy), but there's really no evidence of this, other than the usual improvement that most teams experience during the season. I mean, their spread hasn't improved since LAX, and it's not like Moore ran away with the title at Regionals. So objectively, the difference between Rhodes now and Rhodes then is Handelman, and even he doesn't make that much of a difference.

Now still, I don't think that Rhodes and Emory will finish 31st and 32nd. They aren't leaps and bounds worse than the other teams, after all, and on any given day, teams will move up or down. In my opinion, there's about 10 teams that Rhodes and Emory can beat if they run well (Anderson, Bowdoin, Carleton, Colorado, Dickinson, Heidleberg, Mt. Union, Tufts, Trinity, Wartburg). I figure, they'll beat a few of these teams, and they'll lose to a few, but in the end, both South teams will finish in the bottom ten of the meet.

I also think there are teams from stronger regions that are better than Rhodes and Emory. 4 examples are St. Lawrence, Wheaton, Wash. U, and MIT. They aren't A LOT better, but I think that on a typical day, those four would beat the 2 South teams.

Now . . . what do South teams need to do to get the region some respect? Well, if they don't go to or perform well in the big invites in the east or midwest, then the only way is to perform at Nats. In my opinion, that means that for the South to have a chance at an at-large selection next year, either one of Rhodes or Emory needs to finish in the top half of the standings (the top 16) or both need to finish in the 16-20 range. If they do that, the South will get some love.

But I wouldn't count on it. They're just not that good.

I'm not from Rhodes so I can't testify to how Wisc. LAX compares with regionals, but did you see the regionals course? That thing was hellish. The fact is all of the times on that course are slow, for example Donnan of UTT ran a sub 32 10k at Chili Pepper, but can't break 26 for and 8k? It was tough out there. People are saying that Tyler deserves an at large not because the South is so amazing, but just because Tyler has been racing a lot better all year.

And you're right, Washington isn't a lot better than Emory. Last I checked Emory beat them a few weeks ago.

I don't think anybody here is demanding an award for the south region for being so competitive, or an automatic at large bid next year or anything else. Most of us are just pointing out that every person who comes on here and says "Rhodes and Emory don't deserve to be there" is full of shit, because they performed when it counted most. And although it's not much, the fact that they will not get last and second to last means that every person who spent all his spare time bashing them would have been better off going to some other region's message board and pissing them off.

THE SOUTH IS THE WEAKEST REGION! DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER ABOUT YOURSELF?

Let's here some predictions on how S/SE guys will do at nationals. Mahoney was 49th last year, there are a few people I think who have a chance to be top 50. I hear the course is pretty flat, so someone like Nasiro-Sigo could do well. I assume the UT guys have been running flat courses all year so they should be ready. Any word on Flynn's mobility, if he's got his arm back he should be tough. Most of the guys this year already have nationals experience which is great, but this year the course will be a lot different. Another thing to remember in a race like this is that you're not racing for place, but for time, so basically try to run the fastest time you can and the place will take care of itself. Seriously, your position relative to the pack at mile 2 means nothing on an open course.

It's awesome that you think that SLU, Wheaton, WashU, and MIT are better than Emory and Rhodes, since it basically invalidates your entire opinion.

Nevermind that when Emory and WashU raced, Emory won. Nevermind that Emory had 4 guys in front of WashU's second.

Nevermind because Emory is in the South, and there HAVE to be better teams out and about the other regions.