NXN 2024 at-large bids

saratoga girls have beaten shen 2 times. 1st time at their council championship race. 2nd time was at section championships in the merge of all the girls races. But in the class a race by itself, Shen beat toga by 3 points.

We all know the Colorado state meet course is hard. You don’t need to repeat it for the 100th time. Just because Colorado’s course is difficult doesn’t mean that Bowdoin is not difficult. The two can both be true - Bowdoin is a very difficult course and that is a fact.

A lot of teams will better their rankings at NXN because there are so many nationally ranked Southwest teams and only 4 of them get to go if that. This seems to happen every year. I think the regions might need to be realigned

To illustrate this point, you can look at the Nike XC Town race in Indiana. Timpview (#7 in the SW) had their top two runners compete. If you use there #2 runner as their baseline and use time differentials on there #3, 4, and 5 runners from SW, they would score about 133 points. Carmel won that race with 172 (they’d score 185 if you include the Timpview runners).

Another region should be added or Colorado needs to get moved to the Heartland.

The other option would be to fill the field to 25 teams and have 7 at larges instead and get rid of the cap on each region.

Honestly, they could fold the SW region, move Utah to the NW, Colorado to the Heartland, New Mexico and Arizona to the SW, increase the number of teams and have 9 at larges. Or hell, actually combine the NE/NY regionals and have another set of at-large berths.

There are a ton of different options, but right now, this system clearly has some flaws and isn't actually getting all of the best teams to nationals.

What rank is the best team not to qualify?

Per Dyestat:

For boys, #4 is the best rank to not autoqualify (American Fork)

For girls, so far, #13 Fossil Ridge was the best one to not autoqualify but there are 3 CA teams ahead of them, so one of them will be the best not to autoqualify

https://www.dyestat.com/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=44531&do=news&news_id=670445

https://www.dyestat.com/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=44531&do=news&news_id=670444

You can do a similar exercise with Griak. Use Ella Hagen as your baseline. She ran 1:20 faster at SW than Griak. If you take 1:20 off of each of the CG and Wayzata runners and insert them into the SW results, they place 8 and 10 respectively.

My question pertained to actual qualifiers over past few years. People claim that top teams don't qualify but I won't believe it without seeing it.

In 2022 Rocky Mt from the NW was not selected as an at-large bid. They were put at #10 in the final dyestat rankings. For context, the two teams that beat them at NXR NW finished 2nd and 4th at NXN (Jesuit and Crater).

My feeling is that the current process guarantees the top 10 qualify along with the best regional teams. I recommend against changes other than expanding to 5 at large rather than 4. Do away with "only" 3rd and 4th place finishers. If the best team in the country has sickness the day of NXR and the team is 5th place, take them.

I just read something from runners space about the at large bids being the toughest in years.

They did mention Ridgefield as a contender.

They are mentioned in the preview of at larges

https://www.runnerspace.com/profile.php?member_id=42240&do=news&news_id=670430

Aren’t*

I know times don't supposedly count but the performance at the region meet does.

I just looked at the region results other than the south west which is not working on Nike's website.

Third place teams in all regions are very strong teams.

Last year I saw video of many of the regions and remember how fast some of the courses were.

I noticed over 420 sub 16 minute times vs only 11 in the NY and NE region.

Ridgfeild team time at the state open was 120: 30 (16:06) and 123 :44 in the region (16:44)

Ridgefield won states and new englands at Wickham park which is actually a tough course. Wickham has a long hill at the end of the first mile and a tough beast late in the second mile. It is about 1 and a half miles of up or down.

It is easy to dismiss the North East based on times.