d3 xc nationals predictions

I’m pretty disappointed at how Lacrosse played out. Whitewater kept out their top guys, La Crosse top guys appeared to tempo so it turned out to be a sprint finish between the only two top guys who seemed interested in competing. Wish someone had pushed the pace earlier but if no one was really interested in racing it’s kind of pointless.

I really would have like to see how Mo Bati fared against the top UW runners, but I guess we’ll have to wait until regions… or maybe nationals if everyone sandbags regions too.

Was the Conn College meet short? Those times seem somewhat suspect compared to PreNats.

Crazy to look back at what people were saying about Williams at the start of the season and after they got their cheeks clapped at Siena. They were never in title contention - if they were capable of developing athletes outside of their top 2, they might sneak a podium spot, but they haven't shown that at all this year.

Ofc, I'm sure the Williams stans have all the excuses lined up - their 2-7 is probably coming off an emergency circumcision at Conn, and they'll come down with a nasty case of affluentia at nationals before getting 9th.

The way to the top in D3 is by consistently developing runners, not by stumbling into three studs and praying the rest of your squad magically become all-americans.

Conn is always fast (just like Paul Short is always fast), nothing to see here. Nationals course is also rumored to be long.

Who would have thought MIT’s depth would be the death of them this year?

Pomona’s 10th man would score for MIT. MIT’s only chance is if acquaviva-mah-kearny are all in front of PP’s pack. That’s a hard task when you realize that pack will have both kirkpatrick and florsheim. Thought Williams PV results were strong but they didnt back it up at conn. Looks like we have to wait another year to dethrone.

I bet the '93 NCC team was faster at the conference meet at Augie.

I heard Wilson is focusing on academics this semester.

On the other hand, apparently one of their seniors, Lowell Hensgen is taking a single class this semester (aka light-loading) which is apparently allowed at the institute.

Not sure what results you're looking at, but Williams is very much in the running for a podium spot based on their Conn College performance.

MIT averaged 24:24 for their top 5 at Conn College, and 24:53 for their top 5 at pre-Nationals. If you take Williams's times from Conn College, add 29 seconds to each to adjust, and drop them in the pre-Nationals race, they would have finished 3rd, 4 points behind North Central.

Unlikely that anyone will beat MIT and Pomona, but Williams and North Central are pretty clearly the next best teams based on performances to date, although others are capable of getting on the podium.

Why's everyone so sure Pomona will win this year? Their top guys couldn't hang with the lead pack at auggie. While I'd still say they definitely are the favorite, MIT has a chance.

I predict it will be cold.

La Crosse is overrated. They won't be in the top 5.

Williams got beat by RPI handily, so how are they still a top contender? It's not like anyone even knows what RPI stands for-- and Williams still lost to them!

This reasoning just doesn't work - we don't judge teams by average time, we judge them by top 5 scoring. A team like Williams, because of their low sticks, will do very well on average time - the 27 second gap between Williams #1 and MIT #1 at Conn netted Williams 2 points, while the 22 second gap between MITs 5 and Williams 5 netted MIT 20 points. As the fields get deeper, that point loss from Williams 5 (really, their 3-5) is just going to explode. Conn did not have a particularly deep field, when you add in a lot of the deep teams we are seeing the rest of the country, we could see Williams easily get 200 points just from 3-5. That will put them firmly out of the top 4.

JHU woman looked a lot deeper this week. Could be in contention for title again

MIT? The only thing they have a "chance" at is MAYBE loosing their V-Cards. What are they gonna do? Engineer some Fitness?

Nattys prediction:

1. PP

2. Who cares

I wasn't comparing teams by average time, which would make no sense. Instead, I used the MIT differential to adjust the Williams times as if they competed in pre-Nationals.

Hypothetically, if Williams was in the pre-Nationals race, with Conn College times +29 seconds, they would have run:

24:12 (1), 24:45 (9), 25:06 (22), 25:26 (36), 25:42 (46) for 104 points

North Central ran (with place adjustments for adding the Williams runners):

24:55 (16), 24:57 (17), 25:01 (20), 25:19 (28), 25:19 (29) for 110 points

Also note that Williams didn't run their #4 (Nikhil DeNatale) at Conn College. I don't disagree that Williams may well be over 200 points at nationals, but other than MIT/Pomona, I don't see anyone else under 200 points.

114 for Williams, not 104

Title Contenders: Pomona, MIT

Podium Contenders: North Central, Wartburg, RPI, Johns Hopkins, UW-La Crosse, Carnegie Mellon, WashU

It's wide open after those first two. MIT and Pomona is also going to be very very close

Cope