Princeton mens XC should be sanctioned by NCAA for obvious tanking

for a literal red card? yes. this is a DQ. you can't DQ a protest runner for a performance that some chunky schlub at another D1 or D3 would consider better than he could do on his best day. period. we aren't judging whether subjectively x is trying. we are judging whether x is so slow it's not a real effort. 6 min miles isn't getting judged insincere. walking, maybe.

kind of like in indycar, you aren't getting pulled off the course for 215 when others are doing 220, it's 205 and you're blocking drivers going faster. like, posing a danger.

they don't give soccer red cards for faking a hard slide tackle. they give it for breaking some guy's leg or going in studs up. objective standard. they don't judge your heart or if you are a mean person.

the objective standard is what performance "by any athlete" would be viewed as unacceptable. as one poster noted, some last guys on weak D1s will do these times trying hard. they didn't run wow D1 standard but i don't see them getting DQ'd for running 6-7 min miles. you do that at a D3 meet and you'd take out the back 20% or more of a field. there isn't going to be a "princeton standard," then a "monmouth standard," then a "rutgers-camden" standard, based on upsetting alums. it's gonna be a "no one could consider what you just did a sincere XC effort at any meet" standard.

Different story for 2022 and 2021. Both Princeton and Harvard had some of their A runners in HYP, and team scores were separated by 2 points (Princeton winning in 2022) and 1 point (Harvard winning in 2021).

Funny enough - Princeton ran their A guys on 9/1/23 at the New Jersey Jam (hosted by Princeton) (these A guys ran HYP in 2022 and 2021, if they were enrolled). That explains why they weren't running HYP, but doesn't really explain why they had the A players run on 9/1 rather than HYP on 9/9.

https://www.tfrrs.org/results/xc/22161/New_Jersey_Jam

What's the difference between what Princeton did and what Stanford did in their last race other than Stanford was an invitational . All five guys just cruised and finished together?

5 min pace for 8k vs 6:30 pace for 6K.

To go back to my basketball reference, Stanford might've limited themselves to only layups and dunks, but at least they shot the ball. Princeton did bounce passes until the shot clock ran out. Both aren't great IMO but one is so so so much worse.

In their defense, that has been similar to their basketball strategy in the past.

do you really think we are DQing a last runner pack who finishes maybe 2:30 or so after the next to last? it's not like they finished in 35' or 45' walking, 15-25' behind the last sincere looking finisher. are we really saying any meet responds to a 23' 6k by beginning to pull down the setup and declaring 1/3 of a triangular to earn a red card? that's the end of the meet.

this will get settled in private. the AD will tell the coach don't you ever embarrass us like this again, if that's what happened. or if the coach says he didn't issue any orders, but instead press-ganged unwilling trainees, AD tells him next time run the actual B team. but if the meet red cards one of the 3 teams over a half-effort but not complete farce -- it's now a dual meet as of next year.

Did anyone gain an advantage on the season? Did anyone take away a qualifying spot for a national meet? Did anyone get hurt?

No? Just a preseason tri-meet? Carry on.

also do you really think anything happens to the coach who won IC4A and conference, 3rd in region, made the NCAAs last year, over how he manages the squad on a weekly basis to get there? you maybe get a slap on the wrist to handle this one meet better and you brainstorm strategies where you get the right effort.

now, to be fair to the OP, you finish 7th in conference and pull this, and it's probably on the list of reasons listed to you when you're not renewed or get fired. if you do well it's a side effect of your tactical wisdom that we need to polish. you do badly on the big stage and it's another sign of mis-management.

There's a lot more to Vig than him being a good coach. That's why this matters.

Throughout high school our team had to race twice a week for most of the season: once during the week for "league meets", and again on the weekend for invitationals or championships. Our coach instructed us to race all-out for every competition regardless of whether it was a league meet or invite. By the end of the season we had probably done about 40 or 45 miles of racing throughout a season, which is probably too much for kids running 25 miles per week anyway. Throw in a couple of workouts each week, and we were totally cooked by November.

Many of the schools we competed against did not race the league meets during the season, either by removing the top runners from the starting roster or having them do workouts during the race. Some schools were interested in the league rankings and may have employed strategies to do well on it, and others completely disregarded the league and focused on performing at invitationals. So, I'd say there were plenty of times talented runners in my league intentionally "tanked" league meets to some degree.

My understanding is what I explained above is widely done in high school XC.

The college I attended happened to dominate our conference by a decent margin. Every year at conference, our coach would instruct athletes to run well below their peak performance, yet well enough to win the conference title. While the title was a nice thing to have, our coach's main interest was in peaking for regionals and nationals. I understand many college programs employ similar strategies here as well.

I'm not saying what Princeton did was the exact same as my examples, nor should it be accepted. But maybe it's a symptom of a larger problem in general with XC? The sport is so fragmented that there's no "main" objective that every team automatically strives for. Some teams' goal is to do well on their conference, others simply to set fast PRs, others to make nationals, others to perform well at nationals, and the list goes on...

Other sport leagues such as the NFL have objectives that are clear and are typically universally accepted by each team: make the playoffs, win the championship. Not the same with XC. There are too many objectives and each team seems to have a different goal in mind. Ultimately it creates results like this, where a team is forced to perform at a competition it's not prioritizing. It makes the competition uninteresting and pointless.

remind me why they are running a 6k and not an 8k, please.

I had to laugh at John Nepolitan's recap of the HYP meet for dyestat, especially this line:

"By 5,000 meters, the Yale duo of Owen Karas and Sean Kay had a three-second lead over Shane Brosnan of Harvard and Yale had a commanding 19-41 lead, with Princeton not seeming interested in competing. Princeton's five ran in the back."

I wish he had some comments from coaches in the article.

dyestat.com

DyeStat.com - News - Princeton Women, Yale Men Win H-Y-P Triangular Meet

Havard's Maia Ramsden, Yale's Owen Karas Win First Meeting Of Traditional H-Y-P Recap and Photos by John NepolitanPHOTO GALLERYAt one time the dual and tri meets were the heart and soul of collegiate cross country and track a...

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I absolutely loved watching them do that.

I applaud Princeton Men's Cross Country for showing discipline, strength, and patience early in the long cross country season. I will be rooting for them strongly as the season progresses.

All of the men who ran in the 2023 HYP meet will be rewarded handsomely with PRs in the 500m, 600m, 800m, and 1500m distances. Go Tigers!

Some mid D guys cannot break 30min for 8k, so therefore running a tempo at 6:15-6:20 not that bad

Hello elephant, meet the room.

Not at the D1 level (or D2 or high D3). Come on, a low 1:50s 800 guy is probably doing some of his weekly long runs at 6:20 pace. It’s not a tempo run by any stretch.

Haha, fair point, they did shoot eventually though. If Princeton sat in the back and then outkicked them at the end, that would be the Princeton offense.

People are not considering that maybe if he runs a real B team as opposed to orders the mid-distance runners on the field, then runners 8 9 10 etc. blend into the standings and it hides he's still tanking. It just looks like you lost that day if the B team finishes 3rd but a more respectable 3rd. What makes him look bad is he sends the C team who like show him up. I don't buy he sends the C team but then orders them to run a tempo in a pack. Sending a weaker team suffices for the basic purpose -- to rest the As. Them running as a pack suggests a message to someone. I still think it's C team to the coach because the girls didn't loaf the same meet. Or at least if they did it, they did it in a more competitive fashion where they blend in the standings and our alum doesn't throw a fit.

My first XC year I was on JV but better than 2 senior varsity and could have finished top 40 in varsity district. If you had sent me to a meet as a sub the team actually does better and my competitive times hide that you actually sent a B runner. You could even say you were giving me a chance to outrun them. But if you instead ran a freshman team guy or swiped an 800 guy from the track team, yeah, the risk goes up it looks too obviously like it is what it was. The poster describing his HS experience, well, if a good team dogs a league meet, but there are plenty of weaker runners, you just hide in the standings and it looks like an off week unless you're paying attention. Only in a small triangular do you disappear out the back like this.