The Offficial 2024 NCAA D1 XC Championship Thread

WTF..the coverage of the last 1500+ m of the women's race was totally destroyed. How dusgusting! Like the last half of a Supet Bowl being unwatchable! No one else was filming this! Shame on the NCAA for this sh** coverage of the women's race!

The initial question was also about runners scoring lower than their place. There are 36 Individual runners in the race and they do no count in the scoring; for example Individual places 4th. The guy in fifth scores as fourth because only runners from teams that complete the race as a team (i.e., at least five runners) count in the team scoring. This is a minor comment and most people here know the details.

I was at the course today and the snow from Thursday night along with the light rain after combined with rain several days before affect things. Specifically the ground was not hard (as it was at Nutty and PreNats), not very sloppy except a little at 700-800m downhill curve everyone running inside). Also the grass if fairly long which made the course a bit slower. The number (~117) under 30 for the men is more impressive as a result. Runners going down affected a couple top guys but I do not think that many went down.

Finally, the crowd was large, vocal, and seemed to figure out how to go to spots that were not too occupied. II did not see any interference (but I saw too few Ks to know) and seemed to stay back which made more people able to see.

Since people were talking about a lot of foreign runners, all seven of Wisconsin women are from Wisconsin.

I mean Sahlman/Birnbaum are just mid distance guys, 10k is just too long for them, but I agree on the Young twins, not sure why they haven’t progressed more

Ran #2 and #3 up until Region. Hip injury I heard, recovering. They obviously did notneed her today.

Found the replay on ESPN 3 but it's in Spanish. Is it my settings or that's what's available?

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=13180991

Thanks!

I’m happy for Cleary & the team.

He’s had talent in Morgantown for a bit now. A few years ago they looked poised to be really good but had injury issues. The team got a grad transfer that never ran track or XC until she was a senior at Xavier. She was a soccer player and had one too many concussions and had to stop playing. She ran at Xavier and was an absolute beast. Going to WVU as a grad transfer she got injured and wasn’t going to be able to run XC. If she had been able to run, WVU would’ve been a top team. She had potential to be an All American in cross - easily.

Long story short: Cleary is not unfamiliar with talent

No doubt it makes sense to get stronger but I’d take a little issue with the idea that strength was their issue overall. Both guys struggled in a slow NCAA final before USAs. I think they were in trouble either way at the Trials (just another level up). We’ll see where it goes but it sounds like Gary Martin for one is looking at moving up. With Kessler, Nuguse and Hocker in place you gotta be wary of being a strength-based 1500 runner at the moment a la Cooper Teare. On a related note Nathan Green was about 40s back of these guys in 54th, which could translate to some pretty big stuff later in the year.

I just finished watching the women. The ESPN video sucked.

Hartman should have pushed earlier. I knew that once they got into the last mile if the top 3 were still there that Hartman wouldn’t be able to take them. Hartman is incredibly strong and would have possibly been able to take it if she pushed early. She can run her competition into the ground.

Fantastic race

Progression is rarely linear. Look at Gary Martin - finally 13th this year. I think L&L will be fine.

Great interview. Cleary's description of the Canadian/European club-style setup at WVU was interesting and this particular remark regarding the potential value of sorts of proper base building and a focus on XC was enlightening.

Ceili has now run five summers in a row, up until almost August. That’s incredibly hard to do—to come off August in track shape and regroup without rushing into cross country readiness. It’s not easy. I felt like some of her peers from two or three years ago, who were focusing on cross country instead of summer track, were getting a leg up each year as we came back.

Progression isn’t always linear but you still need to see it as some point or reassess

interesting that blanks raced in Nikes and the latest flotrack training video also has him in all Nike gear. Did he give up the NB NIL deal, after all the injuries?

Cleary is an excellent coach. I have posted before that Americans are often too fussy about the schools they will attend. There are 21 on the roster, 11 from USA - of which 8 are from West Virginia. Then he has 10 internationals (4 Canada, 2 Kenya, 2 Jamaica, 1 Scot, 1 Portugal). Some people are not enamored with Morgantown, I get it. Historically Cleary has recruited Canadians as he has a connection there (raised in Canada) - in fact I think the Canadian 4x1500 record is from a WV team a couple of decades ago.

Providence is similar, except that Ray Treacy is from Ireland (his pipeline). It also has had better success historically. His roster of 22 has 12 Americans (2 from R.I.),10 Internationals (5 Ireland, 3 UK, 2 NZ). Again, difficulty in attracting the best Americans.

I feel that top Americans would rather go to Oregon (mystique), Stanford (Prestige) or other P4 schools, even for partials or sometimes to walk on rather than go to other less prestigious programs, but where they might also develop well. Internationals have fewer of these scruples, but will also expect greater remuneration ( greater athletic scholarship). Both of these coaches have spent their careers at their institutions (likely retiring from them), and I know Cleary would love to take more top Americans if they were interested. Riggs was the high profile Morgantown runner from a couple of years ago - chose Stanford, and I can't say that I blame her, getting out of your hometown is often a desire for many reasons. But I can tell you that Americans from elsewhere are not knocking on his door in any numbers.

I have to disagree. I can't picture how she would have beat any of the top 4. She matched the acceleration from 4K to 5K but at that point she was pretty spent and could just hang on for the rest of the race. Look how quickly after 5K she was dropped - in the next 200 m she dropped 15-20 m on the downhill to flat stretch.