UCLA XC - What's Up???

too many plyos!!!!!!!

pham wrote:

I can imagine them beating both Cal Poly and Arizona State, but the fact of the matter is that all 6 of these teams are in possession of a number of former California state champions as well as Foot Locker finalists. UCLA had none of either category in Springfield last week. Michael Cybulski and Kent Morikawa are their first in recent memory and their impact will be felt in the future.

That's a hell of a fabrication. Oregon has an army of FLN/8:4x guys, but other than them UCLA is pulling comparable, if not superior, recruits to most other schools. Going down the list, UP has NO FL finalists, only a couple state champs (and they're freshmen/sophomores) and only two sub-9 guys. Stanford is loaded up on state champs but only a couple FL guys. Cal has a couple big-time FL guys but they're still young, other than that mostly 9:05-9:10 guys. Cal Poly's website sucks but I don't recognize any big name FL guys on their roster, I'd be surprised if they have more than 1 guy who's ran under 9:00. ASU has a couple young guys who just barely qualified for FLN and then some more 9:00-9:10 guys. UCLA has I think 3 sub-9 guys (which IMO is the equivalent of a FLN guy) and the rest of the A squad is mostly 9:05-9:10 guys with a 4:10 guy in Patterson thrown in there.

The only teams really pulling consistantly better recruits are UO and Stanford (and maybe UW, but they finished WAAAAY back). Maybe Cal and ASU pull slightly better recruits, but UCLA gets FAR better recruits than Cal Poly and Portland.

If the UCLA men's team doesn't finish in the top 10 at the NCAA Cross Country Championships next year then something is very wrong. This year's team had a mediocore year at best, and it may or may not be the coaches fault. The UCLA women were dead last at Pac-10's this year. Cal whipped them easily. And that is embarrassing. That definately is the coaches fault.

Husky 85 wrote:

Cal whipped them easily. And that is embarrassing.

CAL ran well, nothing to be embarrased about. In fact, it looks like Coe had a bit of an off day. If they'd had their usual packing, CAL would have beaten Stanford.

Midwaste, it is obvious that Husky85 is talking about the Cal women, who are usually at the bottom of the PAC 10 pile. PROCEED!!!!

pham wrote:

I can imagine them beating both Cal Poly and Arizona State, but the fact of the matter is that all 6 of these teams are in possession of a number of former California state champions as well as Foot Locker finalists. UCLA had none of either category in Springfield last week. Michael Cybulski and Kent Morikawa are their first in recent memory and their impact will be felt in the future. [/quote]

B]report from the west wrote:

That's a hell of a fabrication. Oregon has an army of FLN/8:4x guys, but other than them UCLA is pulling comparable, if not superior, recruits to most other schools. Going down the list, UP has NO FL finalists, only a couple state champs (and they're freshmen/sophomores) and only two sub-9 guys. Stanford is loaded up on state champs but only a couple FL guys. Cal has a couple big-time FL guys but they're still young, other than that mostly 9:05-9:10 guys. Cal Poly's website sucks but I don't recognize any big name FL guys on their roster, I'd be surprised if they have more than 1 guy who's ran under 9:00. ASU has a couple young guys who just barely qualified for FLN and then some more 9:00-9:10 guys. UCLA has I think 3 sub-9 guys (which IMO is the equivalent of a FLN guy) and the rest of the A squad is mostly 9:05-9:10 guys with a 4:10 guy in Patterson thrown in there.

The only teams really pulling consistantly better recruits are UO and Stanford (and maybe UW, but they finished WAAAAY back). Maybe Cal and ASU pull slightly better recruits, but UCLA gets FAR better recruits than Cal Poly and Portland.[/quote]

Well, you certainly came around, at least a bit, from beginning by calling my post "a hell of a fabrication." By the time you got to the end, it was only Cal Poly and Portland that you singled out as the issue with my general statement.

OK, let's look at that. I will agree with you that UCLA has out-recruited those two schools over the past 2 years. And I noted the two strong and deep classes the Bruins have recruited as of late. And maybe that's why UCLA split the season with Cal Poly this year and nearly caught Portland in two of their three contests.

But Cal Poly does have a pair of Cali state champions on the roster (Johnsrud in T&F and Reid in XC with Gatel as a XC runner up to Matuzak). Troy Swier was also a #3 guy behind Matuzak when he won as a junior. No one on the UCLA roster has those credentials. And I was not talking about sub-9 guys, I was talking about former state champs and FLN guys. By the way, only 1 sub-9 UCLA guy in their top 9 at the end of the year (Crabill from Washington state).

And you're mostly right about Portland...my bad. Although Kinsella, Moore, and Kilburg all had outstanding prep careers, only Kilburg was ever a state XC champ. None of them ever made it to FLN. But that's still one more than UCLA had on their active roster this year. Give them credit for really ramping well and for peaking at the Regional race this year. Yes, their younger guys who didn't contribute this year have some more titles to add to this mix, but I wasn't counting them.

One last question (after agreeing with you about the OU and Stanford quality and depth)...do you really think that Cal's talent is only marginally better than UCLA's out of high school? ASU's maybe (though they have former state champs in Alcorn, Helmer, Heller, and Kelly...plus Helmer was a FLN guy), but Cal's is incredible (though not deep).

Torrance may be their best runner, but he didn't earn the accolades his other 4 teammates did in high school. Ghebray was a FLN guy and won state titles in both XC and T&F. Matuzak won the 1500m Jr Nationals and went on to earn a bronze at the Pan Am games. He also won state titles in the 1600m (twice), two more in XC, won the Nike Outdoor 2 mile, and was a 2-time FLN guy. Coe was the runner up at FLN, won the Nike Indoor 2 mile, the Nike Outdoor mile, and was a state champ in XC. Karlson won national titles in Iceland.

How many UCLA guys did any of this in high school? It's an easy answer.

I stand by my statement as being the truth. Read it more carefully next time or do better research.

Hard for you guys to hear this but USC girls team is on the rise and it may be years before UCLA beats SC again.

State champs and FLN guys is kind of a narrow way to look at it. Include sub-9 and sub-4:10 guys and you're getting a better view of what the school actually has. Besides, Crabill was a state champ, and both he and Barnes were FLN caliber guys. Barnes was one of the best milers in the nation and ran 8:59 (do your research!). Hagenbuch placed 2nd and 3rd at state XC. Ramos ran 9:00.27 which is, for all practical discussion, as good as Crabill/Barnes' sub-9's, though yes technically not sub-9 himself.

Kilburg was 8th at state XC (and his pr's were 4:20/9:20ish(do your research!). Which is actually one less than UCLA (Crabill (do your research!)). Kinsella's HS career was marginally better than those of Crabill/Ramos/Hagenbuch and comparable to Barnes's. Moore got 19th at state xc and only ran 9:12 in track - no where near most of the UCLA guys.

(btw in 2002, Barnes as a soph took 3rd at state XC, Kinsella as a junior took 14th, and Moore as a senior took 19th. Carl Moe won, and the McClary twins took 7/8th as juniors. All of these runners have far and away passed Barnes)

Helmer Heller and Kelly are all sophomore/RS freshmen. Same age as the UCLA guys you're saying need "more time" - and Helmer got what, 14th? 15th? Too lazy to pull up the results, but it was one of those.

Sure Cal has a couple good older guys, but UCLA has by far out-recruited them as of late. Regardless, last year there was lots of talk about this being UCLA's year. They underperformed. And they don't get MASSIVELY out-recruited by the other schools. Barnes, Ramos and Hagenbuch are three very good recruits who should be doing more than they did this year. We'll revisit this next year, but UCLA BETTER be at the show next time around. I know they only barely missed out, but it should've have ever been that close.

just wanted to quote this to laugh at all your incorrect facts.

Sorry but UCLA losing to Santa Clara & Davis on the women's side is pretty much unjustifiable...

The real culprit is Art Venagas. He gives coach Petersen his marching order in cross country and track and field.

He has other problems that are more serious than Petersen and the cross country program. Coach Veney is a bigger joke. T&F is the priority at UCLA, not cross country. Klech transferring to Oregon, and Craddock almost leaving is a bigger issue and a responsibility of Venagus. Veney canÕt coach and is killing T&F at westwood. The talent level in the sprints and hurdles at UCLA is far greater than the cross country / distance program. What does Viney have to show for it at the NCAA level? Not much! Petersen and Veney results are Venagas' responsibility.

The alums at UCLA are not too happy with USC every year outshining the bruins. Cross country is minor problem for UCLA, it's track & field that's a bigger problem. Since coach Larsen retired Venagas has let the bruins take a back seat to the trojans and are not a factor at the NCAA's. Art should be in the hot seat not Petersen!

The only things I "missed" were Kilburg's claim to a state championship (I misread the website where it said "...2003 state champions..." -- didn't catch the "s" at the end) and Barnes' 8:59. So UCLA has two guys who ran sub-9 in HS.

If you want to call the former state champ & FLN criteria "narrow," then that's OK with me. It's just the way I chose to compare the teams.

And isn't the Heller who finished for ASU last Saturday a senior?

And I think that Helmer is a year older thn his sophomore counterparts at UCLA. Plus, he was a FLN guy in HS so that should give him a continued edge if they've all developed at similar rates since hitting the college scene.

Now it's me who's too lazy to look those up.

This thread started talking about UCLA's cross country team. And now it has evolved into a hate-fest of UCLA's track and field program. I don't know coach Venegas or coach Veney so I can't respond, but some of the comments here sound like sour grapes. This thread is suppose to be about the poor performance of the men's and women's cross country program. Lets not get carried away with personal insults. Stick to the facts. And the facts state that UCLA under-performed this year on the men's and women's side. And the women are especially in a downward spiral.

Runner Z wrote:

Midwaste, it is obvious that Husky85 is talking about the Cal women, who are usually at the bottom of the PAC 10 pile. PROCEED!!!!

yup, sorry, didn't read closely enough.

My bad on Joey Heller - I had confused him with Jay Heller, who was a FLN/sub-9 guy and is a soph/RS FR somewhere. Helmer, however, is the same age as Crabill/Acosta/Mercados/Klotz and has shown fantastic improvement at ASU, beating all of those guys. Crabill and Helmer both came out of WA at the same time, and were the best two runners of their class. Both had state titles, both had gone sub-9, and Crabill likely would've gone to FLN had he not collapsed at the state XC meet with a lung problem. He and Jeff are on the same talent level, for sure.

That said, I'm not bashing him, I wish to see him do well, I'm just not convinced the UCLA program is the best place for that.

I agree the real problem is the track program and with the 3 new additions (USC girls team) the gap may get larger.

Cocco 2.04/800m in High School

Meyers 10.24/Steeplechase at East Regionals.

Erdelyi 16.23/5k and a 34.29 10k in High School

Not sure UCLA has any distance runners to compete with these 3.. or do they?

Seems as though a distinction between coaching and recruiting needs to be drawn here. At this stage of the game the focus is no longer on what these athletes did in HS. Particularly since none of the teams under the microscope here ran with true frosh.

The simple fact is that the Bruins didn't get it done, and in the end that rests with the coach and the training/racing schedules. Using FLN qualification, HS PR's, etc. seems misguided here. These guys and gals don't run for their HS coaches any longer.

Sure, the Bruins qualified 3 individuals, but to qualify 3 and still fail to get a team in (especially when 6 full teams go) is nothing special. We are talking about 42 runners going with teams, and you are going to tout the fact that three men still go as individuals?

The simple fact is that they didn't run well, and while each athlete has to face that fact it is ultimately the coach who should provide the answers for what is going wrong.

As for the women, well what can you say? National qualifiers a few years ago to the bottom third of the region.

[quote]

Splitting hairs wrote:

Sure, the Bruins qualified 3 individuals, but to qualify 3 and still fail to get a team in (especially when 6 full teams go) is nothing special. We are talking about 42 runners going with teams, and you are going to tout the fact that three men still go as individuals?

quote]

I wasn't the one who brought up the Bruins qualifying 3 for NCAAs...someone else did.

Sure, it's great for those guys, but XC is a team sport and there's probably not a guy on the UCLA team that would call the qualification of individuals a success.

As for the difference between coaching and recruiting, that's a tougher one to handle. There is rarely black & white on this one, mostly shades of gray somewhere in between. Sure, coaches should help their runners develop and improve over time, but the runner they work with may have entered at a higher level than the next runner. And the two runners may or may not have different amounts of untapped potential as well as differing rates for getting there. Too many things factor in for it to be squeaky clean. That's why there are so many threads like this every year.

If Oregon's or Colorado's or Wisconsin's men's rosters were at another school, wouldn't you think that they'd still be hard to beat? If so, then maybe recruiting is as or more important than coaching. That seems to be the case in most other NCAA sports on both the men's and women's sides of the house.

Well, UCLA got their butts kicked in the dual meet against USC on both the mens and womens side for the first time ever. Time for some coaching changes in Westwood!!!

And in 08, the womens XC team finished last in the Pac 10. Go back through this thread. I sounded the alarm a long time ago, and it has not gotten better. Something needs to change.

I think the Bruins should extend the contracts of their current coaches.

And renew the dual meets with the Ducks. ;-)

LA is a crappy smog filled place to run.

Running on grass in the middle of a giant BLVD and sucking in exhaust?

Or too much pavement running...