What changes should be made to NXN and NXR to make it even better

Average scores over the last 8 years for the top 2 finishers by region (including At-Large teams, which helps other regions much more than the SE):

201.69 Southwest

234.88 California

267.50 Midwest

267.69 Northwest

279.25 New York

285.69 Northeast

286.75 Southeast

317.50 Heartland

355.31 South

Finishes by the SE AQ teams, going backwards:

2018 = #1 and 9 (77, 287 points)

2017 = #1, #20 (89, 438)

2016 = #3, #13 (163, 332)

2015 = #15, #22 (336, 471)

2014 = #13, #14 (299, 302)

2013 = #3, 13 (174, 303)

2012 = #10, #14 (257, 322)

2011 = #17, #20 (353, 385)

That's pretty solid, and pretty much on par with any region outside of the SW and California - while being better than the Heartland and especially the South.

Another improvement... wrote:

Oh? wrote:

The problem with removing regional caps is the tendency towards bias in the selection process.

What specific example of this bias in the NXN selection process can you provide?

The caps are a "solution" to a hypothetical problem. Their existance creates real problems. Saratoga's girls were left home by the cap in 2006; they were a podium-caliber team. That's a real problem. There are plenty of less-extreme examples among the MW and CA boys, NY girls, maybe the NW boys, etc.

I don't see a problem with having all the at-larges from the same region. If a region is that stacked, it will make the meet better IMO. As long as the committee can justify their decisions, it's all good.

I don't have any specifics. I'm talking theory. It is entirely possible for someone, or some group, to overestimate how good a region is, and as a result believe that more teams should be included than turns out to be the case. Just as easily, it is possible for someone or some group to underestimate how good a region is, and as a result believe that fewer teams should be included than turns out to be the case. Simply put, no one knows with 100% certainty what group of teams will run the best on any given day - there is always going to be some question when it comes to subjective thought processes that allows for the possibility of a bias in some certain year. I think we can all think of some teams we believe should have been included as At-Large teams, and others we feel should have been left out - and we're not all going to agree on what teams those are.

Mt SAC had limited entries at the invite due to ongoing construction, but it’s not an issue of any one single race so much as a need to not have 10,000 runners there over the weekend. Look at how many kids toe the line there for Footlocker West. There aren’t 30-35 teams truly in contention anyway, so the 5-10 teams that have a legitimate shot would be at the pointy end of the race with the slower teams getting bogged down in the middle and back, which sucks but that’s the way racing goes.

Mt SAC is not a good representation of what it takes to excel at Glendoveer so it’s not ideal. The best bet would be to find a golf course you could flood the sh.t out of. Maybe the one at The Rose Bowl that Claremont used for their Coolbreeze Invite?

I don’t like that teams who think they’re on the bubble need to travel midseason to try to beat another team they think might make it to NXN as an auto-qualifier just so they can get consideration as a wild card.

CA should have had 4 girls teams at NXN this year. That’s not the case every year, but it would be nice to have the best teams at Nationals. I have no clue how to “fix” this as rankings are too subjective in XC. Meylan and Rich Gonzalez do well, but it ain’t perfect.

How many individuals ran this year? Was it 50? That’s 7 more teams that could be invited to NXN and keep the total around 200 runners.

How about 100 individuals qualify and they have their own race. Then you’ve got about 200 individuals or 28-29 teams in the team race. So 4 races total between the boys and girls. That would shut Footlocker down for good and definitely not leave top talent at home.

So you are saying there's no tangible reason whatsoever to put any arbitrary constraints on the at-large bids. Good, we agree.

How about including the girls in your analysis, instead of just cherry-picking the boys results?

I don't think they are arbitrary, I think there is a reason and a purpose for them.

Let me ask you, then: what fifth team from any region in the last decade do you feel was CLEARLY better than all but one other potential at-large team?

I listed the boys because it always seemed like that's where the criticism regarding the Southeast's inability to compete came from - probably because they had strong girls teams finishing well before they had strong boys teams finishing well.

Top-2 averages for the same time period:

169.19 New York

232.19 Midwest

241.50 Southwest

246.69 California

305.00 Heartland

310.00 Northwest

345.53 South

353.81 Southeast

384.50 Northeast

Yes, it's true that the Southeast girls haven't been as strong as the Southeast boys lately. Once again, though, they aren't the worst.

I think we can probably agree that a CA+AZ+NV+HI regional would be about as deep as the Southwest regional, right? So let's compare how crowded NXR-SW was compared to FLW. Harrison ran both, and ran well at both, so let's use him as the standard for comparison.

Within 60 seconds of Harrison, there were 85 runners at NXR and 66 runners at FLW

Within 90 seconds of Harrison, there were 167 runners at NXR and 116 runners at FLW

Within 120 seconds of Harrison, there were 211 runners at NXR and 169 runners at FLW

That's about 1.4x as many runners at NXR compared to FLW. Can the course handle more than 1.4x as many runners than it does at FLW?

As for why you need the course to hold enough for 30-35 teams, don't you think there would be that many teams wanting to enter the Championship race - and having an argument to do so? The Heartland and Midwest meets typically seem to have closer to 40 teams, the Southwest and Northeast typically has around 30 teams. The Northwest keeps a smaller field of around 20-25, but the Northwest is also nowhere near as deep when you're talking 15+ deep. At the very least, Nike wouldn't be doing themselves any favors by choosing to hold what should be one of their biggest regional races on a course that can't accommodate a good sized competitive field.

I agree about traveling to seek out wild card status. That shouldn't be necessary.

I am sure that Granada was considered for an At-Large, since they were a good team, but I'm not sure it's so obvious that they should have been included. Three of the At-Large teams beat Claremont at NXN, and the fourth (Liverpool) was only 17 points back. I don't think any of the four girls teams selected ever showed they didn't really belong in the field.

What good championship meet doesn't allow room for individuals in the field... it is a hybrid sport, where athletes chase both individual and team success. Taking out the individuals wouldn't make sense to me. And you can't just have separate individual and team races, because some of the best individuals are on some of the best teams.

I'm not advocating for Mt. Sac as a theoretical NXR qualifier, but it's not going to happen anyway because CA is run by a bunch of 70+ year old men who who don't give two sh..s about anything other than keeping things like they were in the supposedly good old days.

It would be a better use of our time and energy to talk about things that are somewhat probable. Adding one more race to an already overstacked CA post-season doesn't make sense. California is going to remain it's own region and they will continue to over-race their kids.

You mention at-large teams that beat California's #1 AQ. Guess who else beat them, CA's #2 AQ and their at-large, which either means Claremont had a bit of an off-race and/or the scores were extremely close at the CA state meet and/or extremely close at NXN.

Here were the scores in the non-official merge (was it ever released?) from the CA state meet. Keep in mind this is a merge with 120 teams! On any given day those top 4 teams can trade places, which is precisely what you saw happen at NXN for the 3 that were invited. Not to mention Granada was dealing with fires in the area that had them racing their section meet 4 days before the state meet and unable to train outside like normal leading up to their section and state meet. Mission Viejo, Serrano and La Costa Canyon were all ranked nationally during the season and likely would have remained that way if it weren't for those who do the rankings feeling the need to spread the love around the nation so they don't get blowback from butthurt coaches and helicopter parents.

State Meet

1. Claremont 209

2. Great Oak 214

3. Vista Murrieta 226

4. Granada 241

5. Mission Viejo 367

6. Serrano 383

7. La Costa Canyon 426

You seem to have cherry picked Claremont because they finished the furthest down at NXN, but look how close the scores are. Given how they ran at state it wouldn't be surprising to have seen Granada finish in the top-10 at NXN, which is a big deal for a team. As you said, the other at-large teams did quite well so I'm not knocking them at all, but clearly there should be more at-large selections given how well all 4 of them did and seeing that another potential top-10 team was left at home while the worst teams in the race are probably outside the top-50 nationally yet auto-qualified. That's a broken system.

NXN

7. Vista Murrieta 231

8. Great Oak 249

12. Claremont 280

In the boys race at NXN there were only 3 individuals ahead of the top team runner. In the girls race there was only 1 individual ahead of the top team runner. It's not as if there would be no top talent if the individuals were eliminated from the team race, but it would eliminate the mass of runners in the top 40-50 spots that should have no bearing on the team race yet are heavily influencing it. Give the individuals their own race like Footlocker does, but have it on the same day on the same course. 4 races is more exciting than 2. It's not at all comparable to NCAAs that has individuals racing at nationals. NXN creates a mess up front with all the individuals where NCAAs team scoring is not impacted.

In the top 40 at NXN this is how many individuals not on teams there were:

Boys 27

Girls 31

In the top 40 at NCAAs there were this many individuals not on teams:

Men 6

Women 5

Also, Jimmer Fredette has averaged 39 points a game the past 3 seasons in China. Some team like the Suns needs to pick him up and give the guy some real minutes just like the Lakers have done with JaVale McGee.

And the REAL change to make NXN better? NO MORE 5AM FLIGHTS HOME FOR FFS! I want breakfast in bed and no earlier than a 1pm first class flight back. Peace.

I agree this is all improbable. I specifically said that this would only be a potential idea if Footlocker was no longer around to compete for drawing athletes to their meet, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

I mentioned the third California team because they finished below the others, correct. Why would you expect anything different? It's not cherry picking, it's pointing out the performance of one of the three teams.

Here is a Top-22 power merge for the California state meet: 132 Great Oak, 140 Claremont, 148 Vista Murrieta, 152 Granada, 219 Mission Viejo

Here is a Top-22 power merge for the NXR Southwest meet: 86 Mountain Vista, 131 Battle Mountain, 136 Niwot, 138 Lone Peak

Here are the results from NXN for those teams:

219 Niwot, 231 Vista Murrieta, 249 Great Oak, 253 Battle Mountain, 280 Claremont, 290 Mountain Vista

... to me, it looks like Lone Peak and Granada were very similar teams. Both were good enough to be in the field, and both would have potentially placed in the top 10. Both could also potentially finish no better than Liverpool did, however.

I think Granada was a good team this year. I don't think it's clear that they were far and away a better team than the four At-Large teams that were selected, or a couple other that might have been in consideration but were left out. I know others on here believe that Downers Grove South IL should have been in the field for example - they were a good team with a good resume, and maybe they would have been competing for a Top-10 finish if they were selected as well. Another team would be Hellgate MT. The three teams that beat them all finished in the top 11 at NXN, and it was a very close race between the #2-4 teams at the regional meet: 54 Summit, 106 Jesuit, 118 Boise, 121 Hellgate. At NXN, it was 120 Summit, 273 Boise, 278 Jesuit.

That makes 7 teams already that I can come up with that were potentially as good or better than Granada (the four teams that were selected, plus Lone Peak and DGS and Hellgate). It seems to me there were 8 solid candidates, and only half of them could potentially be selected, meaning there were going to be a lot of good teams left home. Good news is, if you reduce the number of regional races and save all those extra team spots for an At-Large pool, more of those teams could be on the line at NXN. And if you can make the NXR meets even more accessible while reducing the number of regional races? That's even better! Some might say it's a win-win situation.

As for individuals at NXN... it wouldn't really be a national championship if you are missing individuals like Alexa Efraimson, Sarah Baxter, Kelsey Chmiel, Haley Pierce, Chelsey Sveinsson, Sarah Anders, etc.. Or Casey Clinger, Brodey Hasty, Tanner Anderson, Kai Wilmot, Craig Lutz, etc. Those kind of athletes who are on great teams but can also contend for a national title individually. That is why it needs to be a unified championship. Yes, the talent is more spread out in HS than it is in college - there are a lot more high schools in the nation than there are colleges, and kids aren't typically recruited to go to a specific school, so that makes perfect sense.

How about creating a level playing field.

How many states allow summer practice and coach contact out of season. I coached in a state that did not allow coach contact during the summer, we were unable to hold two a day practices out of season (not that I would do that with HS kids anyways). The states that do allow it have an unfair advantage.

Suggested changes fall into these categories:

1) leveling the playing rules. These seem to be cherry picked, self serving suggestions. There are too many unique regulations per each state. Plus, changing the rules would likely end up with a different team that was competing during the season compared to nxn. If you want to do something like this then just participate in aau or usatf. Nxn uses high school teams and these teams that competed as a team during the season should be the same team competing at nxn since the idea is to find the best high school teams.

2) regional realignment/new qualification. This seems to target the idea that deserving teams get left out. I am sure this is true but it is always the case that good teams dont make it to championships. Its done at state levels and done at ncaa levels of the sport. You can change things up but there will always be good teams who dont qualify but are top 20 teams. You cant prevent this. Plus the top regions will always ebb and flow over time.

3. The meet itself. Havent heard much in this area. Complaints about the course are rather silly. Its cross country for gods sake. One of the purposes of the sport is to run over hill and dale and negilotiate course conditions. Its a sport that doesnt happen in a controlled lab environment.

4. The need for a single national championship. I agree with an earlier comment that it isnt really a true national championship but it is or can be the closest thing. Its a great event.

Oh? wrote:

kid from PA wrote:

For your Mid-Atlantic (which I think would be a somewhat fair region), Hershey (PIAA States Course) and Paul Short are your obvious choices to host. If you moved it closer to Pittsburgh, maybe the RWB course.

I'd also increase the number of at larges with this reorganization or change the rules to 4 teams from each region.

Those were the first two courses I thought of (Paul Short and PA State). However, those were further east than the center ... is the RWB course the same as the WPIAL course (in California PA)?

No. WPIALs is without a doubt the toughest course in the state but struggles to hold the A division of the WPIAL meet because of its tiny starting boxes (2 men wide with only 38 teams). It's also in the middle of nowhere. RWB's concern is parking, but it could definitely be done.

I like the 3 AQ, but maybe Five At-Large? I feel like in the Northwest when you get strong WA teams that could do well at Nationals being deprived of a shot because of the Utah dominance, or in the Midwest with Minnesota, Illinois and Indiana it's unfair. Basically, I still feel like the two southern regions are weak.

And RWB is a legitimately nice and fast course (when there's not six inches of mud), it starts next to a track for warmups, finishing stretch is very conducive to spectators, there's places to eat and do stuff after, etc.

An addendum to #2 is that it can also reduce travel to the regional meets, thereby increasing accessibility and hopefully boosting participation. But yes, I agree with your assessment of the suggestions in general.

I agree with the need to allow for deeper regions to get more potential representation. 3 AQ + a regional cap of 5 probably means there should be 6+ At-Large spots nationally for a total of 27+ teams. That's a big field. I think 2 AQ teams should be enough, and with 6-11 At-Large invites (I'd say 6-8 is all you need) that would create a good sized field and allow for really deep regions to get 4-5 teams into the national field.

FWIW, I just finished my first regional merge from this year to see (roughly) how it would compare. I used the performances at NXR and NXN to find the difference between the courses, and then threw them together to get the projected regional scores.

Here's the Northwest (current NW + Utah) boys and girls ... took a Top-22 power merge, but I'll just list the top 10 to keep it shorter. The team times are set to the NXN National race to give an idea of how well they might have done.

(equivalent performances calculated as: 15:18/15:10 NXN Boys/Girls = 15:10 NW = 14:48 SW)

Boys:

101 American Fork UT 79:49.0

146 Central Valley WA 80:52.4

147 Lewis & Clark WA 80:36.7

150 Kamiakin WA 80:49.4

175 Davis UT 81:33.2

176 Camas WA 81:21.6

179 Corner Canyon UT 81:15.3

206 Riverton UT 80:48.9

279 Skyridge UT 82:34.6

282 Rocky Mountain ID 82:39.3

Girls:

83 Summit OR 91:28.0

133 Lone Peak UT 92:45.5

151 Jesuit OR 93:17.2

163 Hellgate MT 93:19.0

165 Boise ID 93:27.5

217 North Central WA 94:28.1

225 Bozeman MT 94:38.9

276 Desert Hills UT 95:35.5

289 Hood River Valley OR 96:07.0

304 Eagle ID 95:43.9

It'll be interesting (for me) to see how the new South region will do with Colorado, New Mexico and Kansas thrown into the mix... and just how far behind the Midwest they might be. I don't think there's going to be a huge difference, because Colorado in particular is a usually a strong XC state and this year was certainly no exception to that (it was a pretty strong year for Colorado overall).

Apologies for not being better with the quotes. I'm not sure how to separate everything all fancylike.

You are missing the point with #1. Back to the original question, how to make NXN better? Many believe it should be a true "High School Championship". The majority of sane people believe that in ANY sport, that a high school national championship team should be made of members who are eligible to attend that high school. That is an absolute fundamental idea to base the event on. It is not cherry picking. At a bare minimum, at least be made of members in high school, if you want to allow super teams, which most don't want to allow. Certainly things would be affected, like the selection process, but change is part of the question.

It can continue the way it is now, and it can continue to be called a "club championship", and avoid the words high school because it allows runners who are not in high school to compete. People are suggesting though, one way to make it better would be to make a true high school team championship amongst high school runners.

Although I can agree with you in spirit (it should be HS only, meaning 9-12 grade), the tricky part is that some high school associations allow middle school athletes to compete at the high school level. And even if they didn't, there are some areas where ninth graders are in junior high and the high school is only for grades 10-12 -- are you then going to ban ninth graders from competing just because those schools don't have ninth graders on their campus? Sure, it's a very small minority of schools in that situation, but that would be following the same rationale you are using.

It's a difficult situation because different areas of the nation have different rules as to what should be allowed for high school athletes. That's why Nike is erring on the side of acceptance for all the different rules and simply state that you have to be eligible to participate in the sport at that level. It sidesteps issues like transfers and middle school athletes, but it means Nike isn't stepping on anyone's toes so to speak.