How big do you want the race to be basically? Add more individuals you’ll probably have to reduce a few teams. Don’t want the field to be to large. 4 does seem low especially in weaker regions maybe?
Go look at where he ran his 14:28. It was after running 10k the day before.
maybe he had a good summer of training and he is better than he was couple months ago.
No matter what, the rule of having to finish in the top 25 is stupid. Regardless of where he finished look at the people around him and see their PBs on the track.
I am not sure who you are referring to, but it does not really matter. The Mountain Region guys who got left out don't have the track times to match the other individual qualifiers, anyway. The system is hardly unfair.
So why should the NCAA look to change the rules to include guys outside of the top 25? If anything, when the Mountain Region can't fill their 4 individuals because of their large number of team bids, those individual slots should be additional at larges for 5th place finishers in other regions.
If you can't place top 25 in one of the 9 regions, you don't deserve a shot at ncaa's, need to perform when it counts. And even in the mountain region where 4 of the top 8 teams in the country are, you won't see the entire scoring contingent of those teams as all-americans at ncaa's, so any individuals that couldn't break up those teams don't really have a relevancy argument. If the vacant individual slots aren't transferred from a mountain region to another region with less team members but more quality individuals in the top 25, then that's really the only legitimate optimization that could be made, but it's still more of a splitting hairs argument than an unfair system.
You want more schools representing at NCAAs. If all that matters are the 31 teams or the 45ish that have somewhat of a shot...then you are incentivizing the other 150 NCAA schools to never care about XC.
Individuals fill that gap. It allows for more teams to say "look, we got a guy/gal to nationals!"
Go count how many players/schools make it to the NCAA tournament in basketball, or bowls in football. It's WAY more than XC.
It gives mediocre schools a chance to say they made the tournament. That incentivizes schools to care and support that sport.
In XC, we get too elitist. We shoot our sport in the foot.
NCAA regionals is the same thing as a post-season tournament. It's a transparently fair way of whittling down the field from >1500 athletes and 250 teams down to 255 athletes, 31 teams.
Every team gets a chance to compete. Every single varsity squad member gets a chance. Everyone knows the rules going in.
Are you even aware of the FBS post season bowl system? It's blatantly rigged and unfair. This is so much better.
Even with the NCAA basketball tournament every single year there are solid bubble teams who have a good resume that are left out in the cold. Fans complain about it every year.
D3 has the best individual qualifying system. Top 7 individuals not on a qualifying team who placed in the top 35 at the regional meet. I've seen plenty of guys who qualified individually go on to earn All-America at Nationals and it definitely makes the field more competitive.
I think this reflects the long tail of talent in DIII vs DI.
DI talent appears very concentrated in the top teams (ranked). DIII’s top guys ten to be more distributed even down into the depths of teams that score 700+ points at a regular season invite despite having a guy finishing top 5.
I don’t have any data behind that point, just a general feeling I have. Could be wrong.
In the 2013 Northeast Region on the Men's side had 6 teams qualify. Every single guy in the top 30 went to the NCAA championships (the individual qualifiers finished 11th, 17th, 24th and 25th, the rest of the top 30 were on qualifying teams).
That’s crazy. So I guess 46 people made it out of northeast region that year.
Mountain this year qualifies 51 people (out of a field of 119)
everybody wins…
Great Lakes 2002 had 9 teams qualify. Top 32 all went to nationals
Auto qualifiers were 24th and 25th. They gave the other two individual spots to another regions.
34th place was a good dude. Told him congrats at regional for making nationals. I didn't know the top 4 plus top 25 rule was going to keep him out.
NCAA D1 XC individual qualifying system SUCKS.....
So does the team qualifying system
It may suck, but it is inherently very fair.
The alternative would be a two round system with auto bids to Conference Champs (teams and individuals). I am actually in favor of this, but recognize that this would be a system that elevates conference champs (in weaker conferences) over mid pack P5 teams (this is how it is done in every other NCAA sport).
If this were the case these Mountain Region individuals would still probably not be advancing.
NCAA D1 XC individual qualifying system SUCKS.....
So does the team qualifying system
It may suck, but it is inherently very fair.
The alternative would be a two round system with auto bids to Conference Champs (teams and individuals). I am actually in favor of this, but recognize that this would be a system that elevates conference champs (in weaker conferences) over mid pack P5 teams (this is how it is done in every other NCAA sport).
If this were the case these Mountain Region individuals would still probably not be advancing.
The answer is opening it up to 10 or 12 more at-large individuals, created by a similar system as at-large team qualifying. We have computers to do the math, it wouldn't be that hard.
The alternative would be a two round system with auto bids to Conference Champs (teams and individuals). I am actually in favor of this, but recognize that this would be a system that elevates conference champs (in weaker conferences) over mid pack P5 teams (this is how it is done in every other NCAA sport).
If this were the case these Mountain Region individuals would still probably not be advancing.
The answer is opening it up to 10 or 12 more at-large individuals, created by a similar system as at-large team qualifying. We have computers to do the math, it wouldn't be that hard.
Absolutely not; racing for it at the regional meet is the most fair way to do individuals.
A point system like you suggest favors the athletes from well funded, major programs, who get to race in two major invites and a big conference meet every year. It would stack the odds against the better athletes who are not in the P5/Mountain West/Big Sky.
Is it so hard to grasp that these individuals, who were top 10 in their Regional meets, are flat out better than the 30th guy in the Mountain Region?
I think it is very disrespectful to say that the individual qualifiers somehow don't deserve to be at NCAA's given they are not "good enough". That is just not true.
Several years ago there were two proposals brought to the NCAA T&F Committee. One was to eliminate the seventh runners on qualifying teams which would allow more teams to be selected. The main thesis behind this proposal was the seventh runners on almost every team are not very good. Actual results would bear that out.
Along with that was to eliminate the "must be in the top 25" rule for qualifying individuals.
Both proposals were rejected.
As far as the individual qualifiers somehow not be talented enough lets take the men's Mountain Region as an example. The region is very good with seven teams qualifying.
The finishing places of the top seven teams that were selected were:
NAU: 1-2-9-14-17-27-65
BYU: 5-6-8-13-22-28-55
Colorado: 7-12-19-21-38-39-60
AirForce: 10-15-24-25-30-32-46
Montana St: 3-4-34-37-45-69-72
ColoradoSt: 11-16-26-36-43-58-88
Utah St: 23-33-40-48-54-74-89
The individual qualifiers were Ibrahim from New Mexico at 18th place and Kibiego from UTEP in 20th place. The third and fourth individual qualifiers would have been White from Wyoming in 29th place and Cheney from Utah Valley in 31st place.
So the two guys who didn't get in (White and Cheney finished higher than every teams seventh runners. White was better than all teams sixth runners while Cheney was better than five of the teams sixth runners. White was better than five of the teams fifth runners while Cheney was better than four of the teams fifth runners. White was better than three of the teams fourth runners while Cheney was better than four of the teams fourth runners.
You get my points. The two guys that left out (White and Cheney) are very good runners who are much better than lots of guys who will be at the meet.
I have always believed based on the data that the top four runners in each region should qualify regardless of placing given they will beat lots of runners who will be at the meet.
You are making no sense. The reason that individuals qualify is that they are the top runners in the country. The 4th runner on a qualifying team isn't typically a top 40 runner except if on a podium team. Some of you just aren't hearing that a 13:36 guy was the 1st man out in the heartland. The runners who didn't make it in the weaker regions are better than the guys who didn't make it in the stronger regions.
White and Cheney are great runners...but that does not mean they belong at the meet.
Coaches rejected those proposals because they were counter to what the sport has always been. 7 is a varsity squad. For a lot of reasons we should not be looking to decrease the size of what we have always considered a team.
And beating the slowest 4 runners on a qualifying team does not mean an individual belongs. The individual slots are to meant to get the guys with All-American potential, who are not on qualified teams. Those guys should be top 100 for the most part (and top 15 in their regions).
It is not about having the best 250 athletes at the meet. The system is designed to make sure the best 50 athletes and 25 teams have a fair shot at qualifying and making the meet.
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