Crazy weekend for NCAA XC? RANK 'EM

J.R. wrote:

Everyone is ranking OSU way too high.

They only got 8th place a year ago and are no better this fall.

It is surprising that no one ranks them worse, or at least the same as a year ago.

What?

Fernandez finishes the race and they get 3rd. Then they add Mesecho who was top 20 last year and somehow get Vail for a 6th year. I hope your not one of those crazy people who somehow thinks Dave Smith is the worst coach on the planet. Excepting German's injury his squad has performed quite well over the past few years and with the kind of talent that they have all he really needs to be is serviceable as a coach. I'm definitely no OSU fan but lets just try to be a little, teeny bit reasonable here.

If you are going to Rank UVA that highly for winning the GM Invite, you cant not have Columbia ranked at all. They were not that far off from UVA at the meet.

You also dropped Princeton off of that last. They were ranked #30 last week by USTFCCCA.

J.R. wrote:

...It is surprising that no one ranks them (OSU) worse, or at least the same as a year ago.

What is surprising is that you appear to be able to eat and breathe when you post levels of stupidity that would suggest an IQ well below that required to perform such tasks.

Assisted living perhaps.

rank em....

1. OSU

2. Stanford

3. Oregon

4. NAU

5. Iona

6. Georgetown

7. Portland

8. Alabama

9.Wisconsin

10. Indiana

Sorry, XC is very different from football. This is a sport of won-loss records where you play everyone every week. In addition, with the H1N1 flu around, teams can really get set back, both in a race and several weeks in training. The effect is much less in football. I think that the XC ratings can and should consider who runs. The NCAA thinks so because the way that they score points depends on who has run for the team. (Too many people out and it does not count when others beat them.)

looks to me like the best ranking made in this threat so far...

young gunzzzz wrote:

rank em....

1. OSU

2. Stanford

3. Oregon

4. NAU

5. Iona

6. Georgetown

7. Portland

8. Alabama

9.Wisconsin

10. Indiana

good rank wrote:

looks to me like the best ranking made in this threat so far...

young gunzzzz wrote:

rank em....

1. OSU

2. Stanford

3. Oregon

4. NAU

5. Iona

6. Georgetown

7. Portland

8. Alabama

9.Wisconsin

10. Indiana

Yeah. Not much to criticize with this one.

Nice work moving Iona up in the rankings. I agree they are top 15 material, maybe top 10, but I didn't see that great of a performance last weekend

Agreed wrote:

good rank wrote:

looks to me like the best ranking made in this threat so far...

Yeah. Not much to criticize with this one.

Why do you have Alabama behind Portland and so far behind Oregon? And no BYU in top 10? They beat Oregon and Portland. Not the best ranking so far sorry

1. NAU

2. Alabama

3. Stanford

4. Colorado

5. Oklahoma State

6. BYU

7. Oregon

8. Portland

9. Syracuse

10. William and Mary

Oregon cannot be ranked in top 3-5 if they got 4th at a meet WITH THEIR FULL SQUAD! I can't see how not running Weating will boost their ranking very much (if at all). They won't medal this year.

NAU, Alabama, Stanford, and Colorado are all very close right now. We will not know how much seperates each team until they all race (aka NCAAs)

Oklahoma State, while withholding their possible #1 and #2 (Kosgei and Girma could quite possibly be their #1 and #2, i don't know what happened to Girma. Maybe he's sick, maybe he's injured, maybe he's not that good anymore. But Kosgei is legit and I think he's their #1/#2 right now) is still not a top 5 team, YET! We'll see what they do at Chili Pepper if they run their full squad.

BYU is slightly ahead of Oregon, Portland is slighty behind, and Syracuse could be in for a huge year. If everything goes well...they could be a podium team.

William and Mary just has to be in the top 10, I guess.

Analyze that!

good rank wrote:

looks to me like the best ranking made in this threat so far...

young gunzzzz wrote:

rank em....

1. OSU

2. Stanford

3. Oregon

4. NAU

5. Iona

6. Georgetown

7. Portland

8. Alabama

9.Wisconsin

10. Indiana

No BYU?

mideast?? wrote:

1. NAU

2. Alabama

3. Stanford

4. Colorado

5. Oklahoma State

6. BYU

7. Oregon

8. Portland

9. Syracuse

10. William and Mary

I like this ranking the best, except put BYU higher and feel that Portland will be stronger than Oregon by the end of the season. OSU needs to prove that they have a team of performers. So far they have only proven that they don't.

1. NAU

2. Alabama

3. Stanford

4. BYU

5. Portland

6. Syracuse

7. William and Mary

8. Oregon

9. Oklahoma State

10. Colorado

since we do this because we're mostly concerned about who is in contention to win ncaa'a, let's just say it will come down to

ok state

oregon

nau

stanford

and

alabama

i don't think oregon will take it because i don't think one or more of their top 7 will perform as reliably (aj acosta or someone like that).

i don't know why girma mesecho had a sub-par performance at the cowboy jamboree or whatever but he is their weakest link, and if he's their weakest link, i'd say that puts the cowboys in pretty good shape. especially if vail and fernandez come in at the level they should be at.

stanford looks really good as a group, finishing together in 23:54 as a team. and derrick is looking a little more impressive than puskedra right now also.

who knows what teams will show up on race day though. and who will be sick, injured, or worn out. i'd like to see the cowboys take it though, especially since they won't have vail next year. then fernandez can grab a couple ncaa titles this year and turn pro this summer.

[quote]26mi235 wrote:

Sorry, XC is very different from football. This is a sport of won-loss records where you play everyone every week. In addition, with the H1N1 flu around, teams can really get set back, both in a race and several weeks in training. The effect is much less in football. I think that the XC ratings can and should consider who runs. The NCAA thinks so because the way that they score points depends on who has run for the team. (Too many people out and it does not count when others beat them.)

You just contradicted yourself with the NCAA argument, because even though Oklahoma State supposedly ran without their top two runners (we will see later in the year) anyone who beats them can earn points for an at large bid. It doesn't matter that their top two sat out, it is still considered a win over that team, just like in football where the quarterback sits out with an injury and his team loses. Nobody says, don't count that loss because they didn't have the quarterback. Each team chooses who they run. Some teams will hold people out early on, which in turn can affect the at large bids. If these mid season meets didn't matter, we wouldn't let them count for at large bids. There have been more than a few times where a top team held out some runners early or bombed out at a big meet and 10 or 15 teams got at large points by beating them. The at-large committee can't go to that meet and say it doesn't count because that team didn't run well or held out some top runners. So yes, there are rankings and there are NCAA predictions. Two different things and should not be mixed up. Potential is great, action is what counts.

You are right that it doesnt matter is 2 top guys sit out, but there is a number of guys that have to run that are on your squad at regionals to have it count as a point. I think the Number is 4. So lets say a team runs the 3-5-7-8-9-10-12 guys at an Invite and then runs 1-2-4-6-7-8-9 at regionals, then it doesnt count as a point. I know teams like Iona have been known to rest guys at during regionals if they think they will qualify through with out them.

Dee One wrote:

You just contradicted yourself with the NCAA argument, because even though Oklahoma State supposedly ran without their top two runners (we will see later in the year) anyone who beats them can earn points for an at large bid.

Based on what I've seen so far

1. Oklahoma State- Nothing this weekend made me think that they weren’t the best team in the country. Kosgei looked good as usual and Colby Lowe showed that he is much improved. Girma had an off day but I’m not worried about him. Throw in German and Vail and their top 5 could all be in the top 30 at NCAAs.

2. Northern Arizona- Looked real good at Oklahoma State without McNeill. Jordan Chipanagma looks like a threat to be top 10 at the NCAA meet and McNeill could finish in the top 5. Estrada is as good a 3rd man as there is in the NCAA and Ashkettle (All American in XC last year) and Osman make up a very talented top 5. I was tempted to put them #1 but I think Oklahoma State is a safer pick.

3. Stanford- Looked great last week at their home invite. Their front 4 packed together well and having a low stick the likes of Derrick helps a lot. I am assuming that Elliot Heath will regain his form from last track season. He did not run well last weekend but he was in the 5k outdoors so he will round into form soon enough.

4. Alabama- Went 1-2 a the Dellinger Invite and their top 4 all were under 24:00. The problem with them is depth. Their 5th guy ran well at Oregon and they were able to take home the win but at NCAA’s with a deep field that could be a problem. They also have no depth after their 5th guy. I’m not completely sold on Alabama because of their lack of depth but they ran really well so they deserve the ranking.

5. Colorado- Got a perfect score at the Shootout without Jordan Kyle running in uniform. The biggest thing to come out of the weekend is that Kenyon Neuman looks to be back in shape. He is a 13:42 5k guy and when healthy could be a top 15 finisher at the NCAA meet. Neuman, Medina, Tebo, and Thompson all ran really well. Running close to 25:00 on that course is very impressive and they had 2 guys under 25 and 3 just over.

6. BYU- I don’t know much about any of their guys but they ran well at Dellinger and have a very strong pack. These guys are really old and I don’t want to write any more about them.

7. Oregon- They have a solid group but they are going to miss Rupp and Kiptoo a lot. Centro and Puskedra are very good but after that they don’t have any great guys. The Mercados are good cross country runners but are so inconsistent. I’m not sold on Oregon at all.

8. Syracuse- They looked really good at Wisconsin, the problem is that they may have looked too good. These guys clearly rested for this meet and they have a history of peaking way too early. They finished 2nd to Wisconsin at Paul Short last year and ran really well. After that they were 5th at Big East and 5th in a weak Northeast Region. I’m trying not to be a hater here and based on their performance they deserve a top 10 ranking. I’m just not sold on these guys. I don’t think their legs will be there in November.

9. Georgetown- Bumbi looks like a sure top 10 guy. He was 13th last year and then ran 13:30 on the track. If you saw the video of the race you saw how relaxed he looked. Mark Dennin was a huge surprise finishing 4th just 3 seconds behind Bumbi. That will be huge for them if he can continue at this level. Levi Miller was apparently sick so I wouldn’t look into his performance too much. He was an All-American last year and he will be fine. The Hoyas have a really strong team and I think they will continue to improve more than some of these teams ranked ahead of them.

10. William and Mary- They looked really good at Oklahoma State and have a ton of depth. They don’t have a true front-runner but they have a group of really solid guys. I’ve heard rumors of Chrito Landry having a 6th year from cross and if this is true the Tribe could make a run at top 7 or so.

If you listen to Coach Smith's post race interview he explains they did not taper. Sometimes the legs are heavy during the race after not tapering. This may explain some subpar performance on Saturday. OSU had some some 13:50 to 14:10 type guys not being able to break 25:00 for 8K He further stated they would rest a little more their next race. Go to Flo track and listen to what he says.

mideast?? wrote:

1. NAU

2. Alabama

3. Stanford

4. Colorado

5. Oklahoma State

6. BYU

7. Oregon

8. Portland

9. Syracuse

10. William and Mary

Oklahoma State, while withholding their possible #1 and #2 (Kosgei and Girma could quite possibly be their #1 and #2, i don't know what happened to Girma. Maybe he's sick, maybe he's injured, maybe he's not that good anymore. But Kosgei is legit and I think he's their #1/#2 right now) is still not a top 5 team, YET! We'll see what they do at Chili Pepper if they run their full squad.

Analyze that!

First of all, thinking that Kosgei and Girma could possibly be their #s 1 and 2 is just absurd. GF is very clearly their #1. After that you can argue over who among JK, GM, and RV is 2, 3, 4.

Second, GF and RV are on their roster, are healthy and will be running. It's just absurd to look at the team without their #1 and #3(?). Lowe is much improved and should be top 35 by NCAAs, GF should be top 5 easily, RV, GM top 20 and JK top 10. Add it up. It spells NCAA champs.

Thirdly, and most hilariously. You do realize that you said "(OSU) is still not a top 5 team..." in the same post where you ranked them #5. No?

Analysis complete on this one team.