Pac 10 XC

What happened to Alex Dunne of Stanford? From what I read, she pulled up 500m short of the finish. With her, Kroeger and Niehaus racing, they could have definitely contended for a top spot.

I guess I reckoned Puskedra would be going 'all out' because it is the conference meet. He didn't win so it would be pretty hard to argue he just shut it down the last couple km to save it for Zurich or something.

Last year Puskedra beat Derrick at conference and again at NCAAs, not what I'd call a slight advantage to Derrick. I grant that there is still one major race to be run but, thus far, it is clear Derrick has clearly gone to another level while Puskedra has stagnated.

perspectivation wrote:

because lananna would risk losing pac-10s to get centro up to where he needs to be running for oregon to have a shot at the big show in a few weeks. if i know anything about lananna its that his guys didn't run fresh today and ran with a bigger purpose. doesn't mean they'll beat stanford at NCAA's, but they'll be a tougher team to beat for sure.

Yes, we have a winner! Good to see there are some knowledgeable folks out there.

Tirty Tree wrote:

I guess I reckoned Puskedra would be going 'all out' because it is the conference meet. He didn't win so it would be pretty hard to argue he just shut it down the last couple km to save it for Zurich or something.

Last year Puskedra beat Derrick at conference and again at NCAAs, not what I'd call a slight advantage to Derrick. I grant that there is still one major race to be run but, thus far, it is clear Derrick has clearly gone to another level while Puskedra has stagnated.

Man, you are going for some kind of world record in cluelessness aren't you.

1) Oregon is NOT going all out at the conference meet because what they care about is Nats. (Please see intelligent post by perspectivation above)

2) Last year Derrick suffered from mono in the spring. In case you were not aware mono is an illness with fairly long term effects. Can be ill for months. And often not really full strength (especially in a physically demanding activity like distance running) for months after that. Derrick ran well for 2008 XC but was only 90%. By track season he was back to 100% and consistently beating Puskedra at every event, indoor, outdoor, xc just as he was able to in HS.

3) Puskedra has stagnated?!? Yeah, he sure looked that way while completely dominating his race at pre-nats.

Now, please DO think about getting a clue.

[quote]r nt u clvr wrote:

1) Oregon is NOT going all out at the conference meet because what they care about is Nats. (Please see intelligent post by perspectivation above)

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What team doesn't try to do well at both conference and nationals? Somme teams may place nationals first and conference second, or conference first then nationals second. If you know that you are going to qualify for nationals fairly easily, then these are the two big title meets of the year. Ever see coaches list conference championships in their resume? Let's go look at Vins Oregon bio and see if he lists PAC 10 titles as an accomplishment. Conference is a big deal.

If Oregon isn't trying to do well at conference, why were they so happy when they beat stanford 3 years ago at conference?

Get a clue. Teams try to win conference.

Have you ever been on a D1 conference champion team? I would bet not, otherwise you would know.

klo98 wrote:

What happened to Alex Dunne of Stanford? From what I read, she pulled up 500m short of the finish. With her, Kroeger and Niehaus racing, they could have definitely contended for a top spot.

She was following the perspectivation and rnt u clr handbook and dropped out to make her team stronger for nats.

perspectivation does not have a clue what he is talking about...

puskedra is clearly in good shape but has been very inconsistent in races this season (blows up at dellinger, runs well at prenats, pretty mediocre showing here)

nothing on his resume supports the conclusion that "no way in hell does bethke (13:27 guy) or Heath (faster time than Puskedra at prenats) beat an all out puskedra

im not bashing oregon in how theyve dealt with him as everyone(including derrick) will have an off season now and again, but dont have oregon blinders on and convince youself that they would sacrifice an individual pac 10 win so puskedra could hold centrowitz's hand through the race, centrowitz was close to puskedra because he had a good race and puskedra an off day...as they are really not that far apart

yes nationals is the big show, but pac 10s means something, especially to oregon alumni, puskedra will be top 10 at nats in my opinion but i dont need to pull some random justification for this race out of my ass to believe it

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excellent post. Puskedra is a great runner, but he had the added pressure of being the frontrunner on a team that has won nationals two years in a row. And he is just a true sophomore. The pressure of leading his team against a deep Stanford squad perhaps lead him to feel that he had to win the race to help the ducks win. When he realized that he wasn't going to beat Derrick ( he seems to have his number the last few races) he may have had a let down. Saying that both Bethke and Heath ( 4 and 5th at the NCAA 5K last year) are great runners and would be competitive with Luke in any race.

From watching the race, it looked like Derrick had huge support from team mates and Luke did not. Appears that Derrick is a better team leader than Puskedra ( not to knock on Puskedra, Derrick appears to be incredibly mature for an 18 year old).

Perhaps the Duck juniors and seniors should have shown more leadership?

oldguy358 wrote:

Get a clue. Teams try to win conference.

Have you ever been on a D1 conference champion team? I would bet not, otherwise you would know.

And you would lose that bet. But truly a nice try.

Stanford is probably stronger than Oregon this year and has the best chance among the Pac 10 to win nats. But if you really think that Oregon wasn't training through this one well...I guess the best thing is just to wait and see.

r nt u clvr wrote:

And you would lose that bet. But truly a nice try.

Stanford is probably stronger than Oregon this year and has the best chance among the Pac 10 to win nats. But if you really think that Oregon wasn't training through this one well...I guess the best thing is just to wait and see.

theres a difference between training through a meet and not trying to win it...

every top 10 program structures their training program to peak at nationals, including oregon and stanford, however, training to peak at nationals is not the same thing as not trying to win conference

no oregon was probably not at their absolute best at pac 10s but with the fitness and sharpness they had, everyone of their guys ran as hard as he could

the exact same thing can be said about stanford and going off of stanfords showing last year, there is nothing to indicate that dunn doesnt know how to peak his athletes for nationals as well as vin does

so yes, oregon was training through this race, but guess what, so was stanford

(just like osu, colorado, wisconsin, NAU and every other decent program trains through their conference meet while still trying to win it)

more fuel for the debate. Comparison of finishes from last year to this year.

Here is an analysis of the change of place between the oregon and stanford runners from last year PAC 10 meet to this year's meet. ( if they didn't compete in 2008, I went back to 2007, if they hadn't competed before I left it blank )

Oregon, 2008 place, 2009, difference

Top 5

Puskedra 2nd, 4th, +2

Centrowitz 11th, 5th, -6

McNamara --, 8th, --

Danny M 17th, 13th, -4

A.J Acosta 12th (2007), 15th, +3

Other runners

Diego M 38 (2007), 32, -6

Fleet -- , 33, --

Buges -- , 34, --

Klotz 23, 37, +14

Top 5 improvement: -5 places with one ( senior transfer Mcnamara ) having not run before.

Total team: +3 ( with three new comers, two freshman and transfer mcnamara not counting)

Stanford, 2008 place, 2009, difference

Top 5

Derrick 3rd, 1st, -2

Heath 20th, 3rd, -17

Riley 7th, 6th, -1

Marpole Bird 73rd, 7th, -66

Untrennier -- , 11th , --

Other runners

Gregg 24th, 12th, -12

Johnson -- , 19th, --

Sullivan 48th, 21st, -27

Apel -- , 46th, --

Stanford Improvement: -98

Total Team: - 137

Analysis; With Salazar coached Rupp gone, everybody moves up a spot. Stanford has all six of their runners improve, and some huge. Heath, Sullivan, Gregg and especially Marpole Bird improved huge from last year. Marople Bird did run terrible last year ( he was also 43 in 2007), but even removing him from their top 5, and subbing in Gregg, you still get a negative 44 improvement for their 'top 5'.

Great job by the team and Coach Dunn.

Oregon had Centro improve huge ( the points get harder to get when you place higher ) so his -6 was a big jump. Diego moving up 6 is not that big a deal as he was back in the 30's both times. Danny M. was better moving up 4 in the teens.

Both team had one high scorer not having a previous result.

In summary it looks like Stanford is just improving more than Oregon from last year(s).

Comments?

hmmmmmmm wrote:

theres a difference between training through a meet and not trying to win it...

every top 10 program structures their training program to peak at nationals, including oregon and stanford, however, training to peak at nationals is not the same thing as not trying to win conference

no oregon was probably not at their absolute best at pac 10s but with the fitness and sharpness they had, everyone of their guys ran as hard as he could

the exact same thing can be said about stanford and going off of stanfords showing last year, there is nothing to indicate that dunn doesnt know how to peak his athletes for nationals as well as vin does

so yes, oregon was training through this race, but guess what, so was stanford

(just like osu, colorado, wisconsin, NAU and every other decent program trains through their conference meet while still trying to win it)

OK, at this point I am not sure if I really disagree with much of what you are saying.

"theres a difference between training through a meet and not trying to win it..." Well, yeah, pretty much by definition this is true.

"no oregon was probably not at their absolute best at pac 10s but with the fitness and sharpness they had, everyone of their guys ran as hard as he could" OK, here I disagree. And I suspect there is no way for either one of us to prove we are right. I believe that Puskedra was simply pacing Centro. It appears that you believe otherwise. Like I said in my previous post I guess we'll just have to wait for nats.

"the exact same thing can be said about stanford and going off of stanfords showing last year, there is nothing to indicate that dunn doesnt know how to peak his athletes for nationals as well as vin does" I agree. And I am not sure what may have led you to believe that I thought otherwise (or perhaps you didn't - I don't know).

Anyway, not much more to say other than I believe that Puskedra will be top 4 at nats and I will take that as evidence that he wasn't really going all out at Pac-10s. Of course you may disagree and this is clearly not a provable proposition (unless you are named Luke Puskedra).

On to nats.

r nt u clvr wrote:

1) Oregon is NOT going all out at the conference meet because what they care about is Nats.

I wasn't aware that trying hard at conference prevents one from trying hard at NCAAs.

pac10statsmann wrote:

In summary it looks like Stanford is just improving more than Oregon from last year(s).

This is exactly my point.

Tirty Tree wrote:

r nt u clvr wrote:

1) Oregon is NOT going all out at the conference meet because what they care about is Nats.

I wasn't aware that trying hard at conference prevents one from trying hard at NCAAs.

pac10statsmann wrote:

In summary it looks like Stanford is just improving more than Oregon from last year(s).

This is exactly my point.

I disagree to an extent. Oregon has great runners who have reached marks that today they did not even come close to. Danny mercado ran great at prenats (8th?) and so did Klotz (13th?). THey did not run well here at all. You would expect them to be between 2nd-4th for the ducks, yet for some reason today it didn't happen. It seems like consistency has been the problem for Oregon men and women all year long. Puskedra and Centro have had up and down seasons too, and Nicole Blood and alex Kosinski have been all over the map. It seems like a team wide thing. Maybe they are all in different stages of training and it will come together at nats. Maybe not.

After the beatdown your beloved Ducks suffered at Dellinger you would have to be crazy to count out Villanova. Whatever, stay out West and get a rude awakening at NCAA's. PAC-10 aren't as great as they think they are...

So all those critics who bashed Coach Dunn when he was hired, saying he didn't deserve the job, Stanford made a huge mistake, blah blah blah. What you got now?

That's what I thought.

Clearly Dunn is both getting and developing talent.

AJ blew it by leading like a doofus and Kenny went out too hard as well and was the first to fall off lead pack. Danny gave it all he had, he fell off not for lack of effort. Stanford is just too tough. Best hope for Ducks is the hilly, muddy extra 2k worth of real estate they have to catch people at nationals.

Derrick is talented as they come. Anyone who ran the times that Virgin and Graves did in Illinois did is incredibly talented - it is a significant benchmark to me.

I would think that Derrick is the favorite to win at NCAA's - and that is not a knock on Puskedra.