Yay Dartmouth is the favorite going into heps!
Yay Dartmouth is the favorite going into heps!
Course must have been short. They were consistently on pace to hit mid 24:00s through 6k, then miraculously closed the last 2k at world record pace.
prediction: CU WILL NOT SICK AND KICK TOMORROW. #GRINDFEST
bigtool05 wrote:
Course must have been short. They were consistently on pace to hit mid 24:00s through 6k, then miraculously closed the last 2k at world record pace.
The last 2k splits looked fishy in the men's and women's races. I think it's more a matter of the split being wrong and not the course being short.
Jonathan Gault wrote:
bigtool05 wrote:Course must have been short. They were consistently on pace to hit mid 24:00s through 6k, then miraculously closed the last 2k at world record pace.
The last 2k splits looked fishy in the men's and women's races. I think it's more a matter of the split being wrong and not the course being short.
All the other 2k splits were quite consistent
F'U FLOTRACK world! The only one that gave SU a chance were the Brojos. They saw their depth.
"...we have not run under 5 min pace since june..."
Chris Fox - at Boston
SCARY
Its not unheard of for Korolev to run that last 2k in 5:20. Thats 4:16 pace, hardly world record pace for any distance under 10 miles.
After talking to Syracuse coach Chris Fox at the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown three weeks ago, he said that none of his guys had touched 5:10 pace at that point in the season (September 26).
He wasn't worried that Oregon beat them badly in Boston -- said that results from September didn't matter.
Syracuse with only one senior in their top five today. And a freshman as sixth man.
Yeah I have no idea why Flotrack had Cuse ranked so low. But, they're also idiots.
Here is our instant analysis of the women's race:
We tell you which teams over achieved and which teams bombed.
dxc wrote:
Its not unheard of for Korolev to run that last 2k in 5:20. Thats 4:16 pace, hardly world record pace for any distance under 10 miles.
Yes it is unheard of. His 2k splits would have to have been: 6:10, 6:12, 6:01, 5:19, give or take a second here or there. That's 26:35 10k pace for his last 2k, faster than Leonard Komon's pace in his world record road 10k, and on a challenging cross country course, no less. Put another way, it means his last 2k was 7:58 3k pace, not too far off his 3k pr on the track. So obviously either the splits or off or the course is short. It doesn't matter either way; I just wanted to point it out.
Holy S***. Syracuse looked dominant today. Ran patient and dropped the hammer after 5k. Michigan hurt their chances by going out too hard. NAU = too conservative? Stanford looks to be hurting without Jim. Scary indeed to think the Syracuse crew haven't touched anything under 5:10 pace (according to reports). Will be interesting to see how they hold up.
FLOTRACK COVERAGE -
Not only a technically poor production but consistently poor color commentary. Trackmeets.com was doing this more than 15 years ago.
At 6k -
"...there must be a chip error (with Syracuse in front)..."
Quick thoughts on men's race:
1. Syracuse is for real. Five in the top 24 at Wisconsin is really good. NAU won this meet with 121 points last year and was 2k away from winning NCAAs. Syracuse scored 85 and won by 69 points. It reminds me a little of the 2011 Wisconsin squad that won Wisconsin going 11-12-13-14-16 for 66 points. That Wisconsin team looks to be better than this year's Syracuse squad (Martin Hehir is a capable #1 but he wasn't a top-5 lock at NCAAs like Mohammed Ahmed). Colorado remains the favorite on the men's side (at least until tomorrow), but Syracuse appears to have made a lot of progress since the Battle in Beantown.
2. Maksim Korolev's consistency issues may be over (at the very least, they've gone dormant). Korolev didn't have a bad race in XC last season (he got a slow start with 11th at Paul Short but didn't totally bomb there) and was running well in indoor track until getting hurt. Now he's 2-for-2 in running well in the fall of 2014. He hasn't had a truly awful race since the 2013 NCAA 10,000 where he ran 33:55.
3. Tomorrow will tell us a lot about the men's race. If Colorado and Oregon go 1-2 in commanding fashion tomorrow, they'll be favorites to do the same at NCAAs. If one or both underperform, the men's race will be wide-open.
I feel like every team in the NCAA talks about how they've been training super conservative until now and look how many actually deliver the goods on race day.
NAU ran pretty horribly after their top 3. I would've expected them to do better than that through 5. Maybe with more time they'll improve. Same goes to Stanford who outside of Maksim and the Rosa brother, were pretty off.
Iona's imports this season seem to be paying dividends, though was it last year that they totally bombed out at nationals? hopefully they time their peak correctly and with Kerron back they'll be very very good. The question is, why did he not run today if they went guns blazing. I would imagine he must have some kind of injury or be behind in fitness unless it's been stated otherwise.
It seems like Portland took a very solid step in the right direction to finish 4th. If they continue to consistenly improve, I could see them finishing inside of the top 5 at nationals but they would have to improve some more.
5th man problems for Providence cost them a lot. They had 4 in the top 65 and then a 5th man at 161. That's a big bleed that cost them probably 5 spots if they could put a guy up with their #4. Same goes to Arkansas who had two guys in the 140s scoring for them. That's pretty atrocious considering how good they are up front and how well ranked they came in today. I wonder whether that was a matter of dropping the ball or are they just overhyped because of their front runners.
One of the biggest stories might be wisco coming out and getting third. How much does home course advantage play into things here? They beat UCLA, Portland, Stanford and NAU. That should cause a big swing up in the rankings for them.
So it seems like unless stanford and NAU find their legs they are probably out of the running for the win against the likes of CU and Oregon. Still a long season but you can only make due with what you've got.
I agree with your analysis JG. However, I would say that in a bigger field, it seems like Syracuse might lack the low sticks to contend. If both CU and Oregon fall flat tomorrow then I predict it might be a higher scoring year to win as I don't see Martin or Justyn to be contenders for top 10 finishes at NCAAs. After all they only finished 7th and 14th here today and missing half the eventual nationals field. I'd imagine at best that puts them with only 3 guys in the all america range. They would need to take another very large step forward. It's not impossible but that is a big if.
OVerrated wrote:
I feel like every team in the NCAA talks about how they've been training super conservative until now and look how many actually deliver the goods on race day.
NAU ran pretty horribly after their top 3. I would've expected them to do better than that through 5. Maybe with more time they'll improve. Same goes to Stanford who outside of Maksim and the Rosa brother, were pretty off.
Iona's imports this season seem to be paying dividends, though was it last year that they totally bombed out at nationals? hopefully they time their peak correctly and with Kerron back they'll be very very good. The question is, why did he not run today if they went guns blazing. I would imagine he must have some kind of injury or be behind in fitness unless it's been stated otherwise.
It seems like Portland took a very solid step in the right direction to finish 4th. If they continue to consistenly improve, I could see them finishing inside of the top 5 at nationals but they would have to improve some more.
5th man problems for Providence cost them a lot. They had 4 in the top 65 and then a 5th man at 161. That's a big bleed that cost them probably 5 spots if they could put a guy up with their #4. Same goes to Arkansas who had two guys in the 140s scoring for them. That's pretty atrocious considering how good they are up front and how well ranked they came in today. I wonder whether that was a matter of dropping the ball or are they just overhyped because of their front runners.
One of the biggest stories might be wisco coming out and getting third. How much does home course advantage play into things here? They beat UCLA, Portland, Stanford and NAU. That should cause a big swing up in the rankings for them.
So it seems like unless stanford and NAU find their legs they are probably out of the running for the win against the likes of CU and Oregon. Still a long season but you can only make due with what you've got.
All sensible stuff. What about Ok State? Seems like we'll only find out how good they are at the national meet.
The course is short. Every year people talk about the last 2k split being incredibly fast.
Interesting note in regards to SU: their 7th man today, Reed Kamyszek, finished 181st. He's a 29:00 guy on the track if I'm not mistaken. Results show 2nd man for SU at the Boston College meet. Maybe he's injured or sick, but throw him into the mix today and...