with abilene losing this weekend, how far will they drop in the rankings? even though rankings doesn't mean anything, and its just an opinionated number. but is abilene not as strong, or did they sit out some guys? they have their top 3...then they no one else.
I honestly think so many teams talk out thier ass on here. Especially Metro state. Thier ranked 6th in their region and they think they will be top 7 in the nation. hahaha dont make me puke
Didn't someone on here I think someone from Mines say they were beat by Metro at the time trial? Maybe beating the 8th ranked team might warrant such thoughts.
Metro wrote:
I honestly think so many teams talk out thier ass on here. Especially Metro state. Thier ranked 6th in their region and they think they will be top 7 in the nation. hahaha dont make me puke
d2 runner wrote:
with abilene losing this weekend, how far will they drop in the rankings? even though rankings doesn't mean anything, and its just an opinionated number. but is abilene not as strong, or did they sit out some guys? they have their top 3...then they no one else.
obviously they sat out some guys you retard
they sat 1 guy out know-it-all
ACU sat out a bunch (tanui, sang, gasore). For those who did run at every mile mark their new coach was telling them to "relax" or "shut it down". Safe to say their still #1.
chiz wrote:
Didn't someone on here I think someone from Mines say they were beat by Metro at the time trial? Maybe beating the 8th ranked team might warrant such thoughts.
Metro wrote:I honestly think so many teams talk out thier ass on here. Especially Metro state. Thier ranked 6th in their region and they think they will be top 7 in the nation. hahaha dont make me puke
Well thats probably because they beat a team that is ranked to high. Thiers a thought.
I've seen ACU run at nationals for the past two years and believe me they sat out at least 3 guys. They are still the team to beat and landing Chuck White was HUGE.
How about Kirwa for national champ? Should be a great race btw him and Scotty out front. I also think that UMASS-Lowell has to be one of the top-8 teams in the country right now...they placed 2 in the top-25 at the meet of champions, including sanca 12th...and had 9 guys run under 26 mins this weekend.
I also thought Alaska Anchorage (Kenya North) looked impressive - they may have bought themselves a top-5 team!
harding looked impressive at missouri southern
I didn't expect Alaska Anchorage to run that well at sundodger, but then again I didnt expect to recognize nobody from last years squad except Kiplagat. Was their entire scoring 5 Kenyan?
Their number 3 was a true freshman from Alaska. Top true freshman in the race.
Damn impressive. Nice job recruiting over there, Bone!
This year Anchorage (men's program) recruited two very solid Kenyans and a top Alaskan athlete that have improved our top 7. With the improvements in some of the returners (Rottich and Pena) Anchorage should be in contention to get back to nationals, or at least make the west region more competitive.
The west is very tough this year, with Chico being very good and at least 3-4 other teams trying to snag the other two slots.
Outside of Chico (those guys are really strong), no team is safe for qualifying to nationals. Western Washington, UC San Diego, Western Oregon, and now even Cal Poly Pomona are teams proven to be capable of getting to the meet. Others teams might come forward.
And while the talk seems to be centered on the mens side, the women's side is extremely tough.
Last time Anchorage qualified for the national meet was in 2006. And not that it should matter but they ran to a solid 15th place team finish with 6 of the the 7 being from Alaska. Anchorage ran 20th in 2005, 12th in 2002 and 16th in 2001.
People need to rethink their international bias. Alaska has only around 600,000 people and with the sterotypes about Alaska that most US athletes have... we are going to recruit someone. We recruit our top Alaskans first, then move outward. We have no borders when it comes to recruiting. We want good students that have athletic potential and demonstrate high moral values.
The International athletes we have recruited have been solid runners, but more importantly they have been solid students. They have certainly helped eliminate some of the stereotypes about Alaska while bringing a strong sense of appreciation (about what they are being offered) to the program. Lets face it, too many Americans are very content with being lazy and only seem to complain about what they are not getting rather than appreciating what is being given to them.
Every program has it positives and negatives and you need to maximize your positives while not making excuses out of your negatives if you want to improve. That's the game we all play.
Letsrun.com is a great site. I have changed my mind about posting on it as I do realize that these sorts of sites are here to stay, so we all might want to help keep them on a higher level.
Michael Friess
University of Alaska Anchorage
Anchorage Coach wrote:
This year Anchorage (men's program) recruited two very solid Kenyans and a top Alaskan athlete that have improved our top 7. With the improvements in some of the returners (Rottich and Pena) Anchorage should be in contention to get back to nationals, or at least make the west region more competitive.
The west is very tough this year, with Chico being very good and at least 3-4 other teams trying to snag the other two slots.
Outside of Chico (those guys are really strong), no team is safe for qualifying to nationals. Western Washington, UC San Diego, Western Oregon, and now even Cal Poly Pomona are teams proven to be capable of getting to the meet. Others teams might come forward.
And while the talk seems to be centered on the mens side, the women's side is extremely tough.
Last time Anchorage qualified for the national meet was in 2006. And not that it should matter but they ran to a solid 15th place team finish with 6 of the the 7 being from Alaska. Anchorage ran 20th in 2005, 12th in 2002 and 16th in 2001.
People need to rethink their international bias. Alaska has only around 600,000 people and with the sterotypes about Alaska that most US athletes have... we are going to recruit someone. We recruit our top Alaskans first, then move outward. We have no borders when it comes to recruiting. We want good students that have athletic potential and demonstrate high moral values.
The International athletes we have recruited have been solid runners, but more importantly they have been solid students. They have certainly helped eliminate some of the stereotypes about Alaska while bringing a strong sense of appreciation (about what they are being offered) to the program. Lets face it, too many Americans are very content with being lazy and only seem to complain about what they are not getting rather than appreciating what is being given to them.
Every program has it positives and negatives and you need to maximize your positives while not making excuses out of your negatives if you want to improve. That's the game we all play.
Letsrun.com is a great site. I have changed my mind about posting on it as I do realize that these sorts of sites are here to stay, so we all might want to help keep them on a higher level.
Michael Friess
University of Alaska Anchorage
Did this coach actually just post this on here. In my eyes the respect for anchorage just dropped 200%. I think a coach should be worried about more important things than what lets run has to say about his team. You dont need to justify your kenyans for us. Almost every team has one and thats already understood.
Respectful post, I like a coach that doesn\'t shy away from this stuff, but i also respect the coaches that don\'t bother with this stuff either. Either way, its fun predicting stuff.
Given that, and looking at the results, both Umass and Anchorage are looking pretty good time wise.
A question that I have is how fast are these courses. The three biggest deciders of how fast a course is can be determined by:
How hilly the course is
The temperature/weather (humid, hot, windy, raining etc.)
the condition of the course (hard ground or muddy)
Looking at the times from both schools its seems that both courses were very fast.
Anchorages top five did not go above 25 minutes, which makes me believe that this course had ideal weather conditions as well as it must have been completely flat with maybe some rolling hills. I am not trying to take anything away from them because those times are very good, but if you look at what nationals are gonna be like i would like to see how those same runners fare on a muddy hilly course.
Umass times were very impressive as but judging from the times and the overall spread of 25min runners and 26 min runners, i would say that this course was fast as well (not as fast as anchorages).
I would expect both of these teams to move up in the rankings (i haven\'t checked today if they did or not), but i would also like to see how they would fair on tougher courses aka, more hills and not such ideal conditions (the biggest factor being hills).
With that said, there is always a debate how people get ranked etc. and i could see how it would be tougher than track since all courses are different, making times more irrelevant in general.
Now i would like to ask, if those two teams move up, how far, and who will they knock out? (do some research, look at times from races run this year and previous years to see meet winning times etc. i do this every time before i post)
I dont know much about the course that Umass ran at. Alaska Ran Sundodger at Lincoln Park in Seattle. The course is flat and fast. Weather conditions on the day were wet and shitty. The course consists of 4 loops, with minimal elevation gain, on grass field, dirt trails and crushed rock paths.
I know that the assistant coach at Alaska Anchorage handles the national rankings (is this still true?), but I do not believe he has ever set the ranking based on a bias. That being said, given the times run by his guys this last weekend, that the UAA mens team could jump into the top 7, maybe even the top 5.
In regards to the coaches post, everyone should know that he has always bought local. Alaska-native runners who have gone there have developed very well. While it is true that more Kenyans are running for that team than ever, it is not true that they are only attempting to recruit Kenyans. I personally believe that the new Kenyans that are on that team now are there solely because of word-of-mouth by the Kenyans that were there before.
The rankings this week will be interesting.
Abilene ran just two of their top guys...Alaska-A looked very good (as I thought they would) and should move up... Props to UMass-Lowell they ran much faster than the same race last year and should bump somebody from the top 10 (my comment about falling apart was based on two of their guys not finishing at nationals last year)...Harding is killer strong and Cheruyiot did not run well...Abilene and Adams just got awake up call ---I know the Stampede course is fast--- but Harding is for real.
Again we are faced with the rankers looking at results versus potential. Western has no business being ranked ahead of any of the top 10 teams based on results---will the rankers continue to rank them based on expectations?
How I see the top teams now;
1. Abilene
2. Harding
3. Adams
4. Chico
5. Alaska-Anch
6. Colorado-Mines
7. Mankato
8. UMass-Lowell
9. Queens
10 is tough...Highlands has 3 guys faster than either WWU or Missouri Southern's #1 guys, but has not run a 5th man to speak of...Western (CO) needs to run some people at the Shoot-out on the 4th...Edinboro runs a different group each week it seems--they might be the 10th team--- They seem to have a bunch of guys not far behind Arthur, who was 34th at nationals last year--if their coach was less of a donkey, I'd put them 10th...Grand Valley seems pretty down this year and is being ranked high on rep...
10.Western Washington
I can hear screams from the RMAC now...But this is how I would rank teams based on the "what have you done for me lately" theory...I (like the rankers, probably) have an expectation that Western State will find some guys to race and show up when it counts...I expect Highlands fifth man to show up in a race as well...I look forward to seeing what Metro does at the Shoot-out--Aaron says they looked better than Mines a month ago!
yea tat course was so flat i can't believe it. It might have been wet but it didn't look muddy. if you ask me, perfect conditions.
and their 6 and 7 man drop way off at the end of that. Risky build, but from a scoring and preforming perspective they should be ranked higher.