Ranking WI collegiate distance programs

800- La Crosse

1500- Marquette

5k- La Crosse

8k XC- Marquette

10k- La Crosse

Indoor Track Facility- La Crosse (Marquette doesn't have one)

Outdoor Track Facility- La Crosse

Budget- Marquette

School Top 10 performances- Marquette

Team Depth- La Crosse

Coaching- La Crosse

Add it all up, and it's a push

Marquette has a cross country and track team?...

Did people really rank Cardinal Stritch above other schools?!?!?! Take a look at who the new head coach is and you will see they are on their way to the bottom...fast.

Nah bro wrote:

Or nah wrote:

Lacrosse would shit all over Marquette

This is La Crosse's best team ever and they still couldn't match up to Marquette

Lax and Marquette usually never have the chance to race head to head, but the last time I can remember when this would have happened was when Lax raced at the Wisconsin Adidas meet in 2009 and they were the only d3 team in the race...and they smoked Marquette. So your claim has already been proven false, nice job.

More like this wrote:

1. Wisconsin

2. Eau Claire

3. Marquette

4. La Crosse

5. Parkside

6. Cardinal Stritch

7. Milwaukee

8. Oshkosh

9. Platteville

10. Stevens Point

11. Stout

12. Whitewater

UWEC's spot here- legit.

TheTruthBomb wrote:

Did people really rank Cardinal Stritch above other schools?!?!?! Take a look at who the new head coach is and you will see they are on their way to the bottom...fast.

100% correct. Cardinal Stritch had a quick moment in the sun, but Coach Pearson left and Danny Garcia transferred to Butler. The new coach is garbage. They will fade back into nothingness once again.

LaX Attack wrote:

Your top boys ran the equivalent of 15:30 - 16:00 5ks on some pancake in FIBland. If they were such studs theyd be about a minute faster. These guys arent very good and you must be in denial because La Crosse has the better everything.

Using McMillan Calculator based on weekend results

Marquette: 15:26, 15:34, 15:44, 15:50, 15:50, 15:51, 15:57//1,2,5,8,9,(10),(13)=25 15:40.8avg

La Crosse: 15:41, 15:44, 15:46, 15:50, 15:53, 15:53, 15:57//3,4,6,7,11, (12),(14)=31 15:46.8avg

Slight edge to Marquette. There top 5 avg is better than La Crosse's top finisher. 6 seconds over 5k will be much more over 8k.

The real question is how can you make a comment that the MU guys "arent very good" when their results were better top to bottom over LaX? What does that say about LaX? They must not be very good in your eyes either.

I've been observing this thread for a while now, and I have noticed there is a lot of resentment for Milwaukee and Marquette. It sounds like we have a lot of Division 3 justice heroes on here that just want to point out they are so much better than Milwaukee and Marquette.

There have been some comments made about wanting to be a big fish in a small pond, or not wanting to have running feel like a job, etc. about how some kids chose to go Division 3 instead of Division 1. To this I would say, if you believe these wiac schools are better than Milwaukee and Marquette, wouldnt that make running for Milwaukee (who are in the less than intimidating Horizon League), or Marquette (who couldnt match La Crosse from 8 years ago) offer an athlete the opportunity to make a bigger immediate impact (being a big fish in a little pond) instead of running at "Elite D3" school? Also, you can get your schooling paid for and travel to meets in Florida, Texas, California, and New York.

So why is there so much hate for Milwaukee and Marquette? What are your expectations for these teams? What would they have to do to make you say they are successful programs and no longer warrant nasty comments?

Mike Nelson once told his injury prone runners they needed to spend as much time on their feet as everyone else to help build bone strength or something. He made them run 5-6mi out and walk back. That is a true story. Q.E.D, hold this L.

Most d3 runners take quite a bit of pride in beating any d1 runner they can. Somehow it justifies their commitment and makes being d3 less of a joke. Some d1 runners chose their school first and are just happy to be running still.....they have no elitist mentality as they just like running. They run slower than wiac stars and make a boatload of coin when they graduate.

You can pick on d1 runners that are not exceptional, but you have to also credit d3 for having some of the most pathetic competition you'll ever see. Teams built on "participation" are probably 90% of d3 schools and they're awful when compared to any WIAC school.

The low level d1 kids, like those at MU and milwaukee know how good they are. They don't pretend to be on the same level of Madison or Norte Dame. They're fanboys with man-crushes too, just like the d3 guys are.

Types of D3 runners

-Die hard running guy who loves the sport but was awful in high school. This is true D3, opportunity for kids to keep competing even if you totally blow.

-Mild talent kid who just wants to be a college kid and keep running too.

-Wildly underdeveloped diamond in the rough that didn't run fast in high school, but turns into a monster (Nelson, LaMere, Kaul, etc.)

-Great talent who isn't smart enough to get into a D1 school and they clean everyone up.

-D1 talent who runs D3- This is the running equivalent to a kid that plays video games on beginner mode and wins all the time until that one time where they are about to lose and they reset the game because they can't handle losing. No balls.

Marquette needs to learn wrote:

What Marquette and UWM both need are a coaching overhaul. Both of these schools should be better and we are just not seeing the results.

Expect bigger things and bigger expectations out of Milwaukee. They have a new coach writing all their workouts and they've ramped training up quite a bit. John Simons, former sub 4 miler who ran for Minnesota, has been given the reigns and is working with the boys program.

Albeit that may not solve issues with Corfeld that everyone seems to have, this shift could be a serious step in the right direction for the program especially if they can bring in more guys like Tagliapietra and show they can actually develop runners

D3 guys wrote:

Types of D3 runners

-Die hard running guy who loves the sport but was awful in high school. This is true D3, opportunity for kids to keep competing even if you totally blow.

-Mild talent kid who just wants to be a college kid and keep running too.

-Wildly underdeveloped diamond in the rough that didn't run fast in high school, but turns into a monster (Nelson, LaMere, Kaul, etc.)

-Great talent who isn't smart enough to get into a D1 school and they clean everyone up.

-D1 talent who runs D3- This is the running equivalent to a kid that plays video games on beginner mode and wins all the time until that one time where they are about to lose and they reset the game because they can't handle losing. No balls.

One more category: borderline DI talents who choose to DIII schools like MIT, Williams, and Johns Hopkins because they're athletic talent is able to get them into a great academic school they might not have been able get into otherwise.

I've heard from more than one source that Coach Plasencia is a guy who won't look at you, let alone speak with you until you're a conference scorer. Made a kid run from a hotel once because he was afraid of him on a track road trip. Nobody knew where he went it was pretty wild. Not kidding one bit.

So I guess like the typical D-1 college coach...

After the first couple meets

1. Wisconsin

2a. La Crosse- Top guy was their 5th at the alumni meet, meaning they are deep

2b. Marquette- Not really that impressive by their result from Parkside this past week

4. Eau Claire- Really poor recruiting class for this year

5. Stevens Point- Brought in enough new talent to fill out a solid roster, look for them this fall

6. Parkside- Outside Armando Torres, this is a very underwhelming group, only had 5 under 27:00 at home this week

7. Stout- Only a 35 second spread from 1-5 and averaged 26:31 at first meet

8. Whitewater- Really good recruiting class to go with a low stick

9. Milwaukee- They have run 2 meets, but their top guys haven't raced yet, probably all hurt

10. Platteville- Only had 2 guys average under 5:30 pace for a 4 mile, they have a lot of work to do

11. Oshkosh- The magic is all gone

12. Green Bay- They have 2 guys, that's it

What about the ol' Falcons of UW-River Falls? Are there any D3 girls teams that could beat their guys team?

River Falls isn't very good, but their men would still win the women's WIAC meet

Without hurting anyone's feelings and hurling insults it looks as though La Crosse would handle Marquette fairly easily. Marquette lost to Dayton, a struggling Notre Dame and nearly to a university called Duquesne which I have never even heard of before. It was hot and humid but still not an excuse to run 25:27-26:07 on an easy course like Notre Dame. Even Eau Claire might have caught Marquette today. Darin Lau looks solid right now too and would beat most D1 runners. La Crosse will be at Roy Griak next week.

Brutal conditions this weekend. If you take a look at the results, it's a wash. Some really good guys looked like jello at the whitewater meet. Just looking at the other results the story is similar. I agree that Marquette has looked less than spectacular so far. But this is what you get when you run 3 competitions in 13 days. Not exactly the brightest strategy. These guys will probably make some pretty quick fitness gains from those efforts, but it's unsustainable. They will be toast at conference and regionals. As far as it goes with La Crosse, they had the best weekend because they decided to sit their guys. Great move for them because contrary to popular belief on this thread, the La Crosse kids are mortal too. The Brett Harms kid would probably be La Crosse's 2-4 runner and he barely broke 27 this weekend. Reality check here, La Crosse would have run 26:30-27:15... They win the weekend because their kids won't have their egos ripped up by seeing a result north of 26 minutes.

New Rankings

1. Wisconsin

2. Marquette

3. La Crosse

4. Eau Claire

5. Parkside

6. Whitewater

7. Milwaukee

8. Stout

9. Stevens Point

10. Oshkosh