If you didn't follow them through track or even bother to click TFRRs, how can you possibly know what their single goal for the season is? What if I had told you that they qualified a bunch of guys for track and they were trying hard to place high?
If you didn't follow them through track or even bother to click TFRRs, how can you possibly know what their single goal for the season is? What if I had told you that they qualified a bunch of guys for track and they were trying hard to place high?
naw nau wrote:
If you didn't follow them through track or even bother to click TFRRs, how can you possibly know what their single goal for the season is? What if I had told you that they qualified a bunch of guys for track and they were trying hard to place high?
Then someone else probably would have called you out for being wrong.
Just chill out, he was only asking a question. He bothered to look through the results of the race to answer one of my points, there's no need to get upset about someone asking a question
It isn't that he asked a question. It is that he went out of his way to make a post with bolded text and an exclamation mark. After making that bold statement, he asks a question which shows that he is not even familiar with the team.
"NOT stupid and arrogant of NAU! They have 1 primary goal this XC season - to win NCAAs. Last year they had 2 goals: to keep a 3-year unbeaten streak alive AND win NCAAs, which in retrospect was probably asking too much."
Andy Deris wrote:
I don't get why you would tank your conference championship.
There is no regional meet. They are not running indoor.
How could it hurt to go out and win yourselves a conference title? NAU wouldn't even need to run all out to win. Just go do what you have to do to win the championship.
This is why XC is a joke and athletic departments cut it. What other sport would not try to win you conference?
Perhaps coaches should have bonus structures for conference, regionals & nationals.
NAU GOES HOME DEVASTATED
PRETTY-BOY NICO YOUNG NOWHERE TO BE FOUND
Maybe I missed it above - but did Coach Smith actually say why he rested those guys? Little nagging injury or soreness? I can imagine lots of reasons, but the worst would be that covid is making its way through the team.
Per the article: “We definitely would’ve liked to come away with a win today; finishing second by just a few points was disappointing, but Southern Utah came ready to run,” said Mike Smith, director of cross country and track and field at NAU.
Smith doesn't say anything about his line-up, at least in this article.
Junior Ryan Raff (24:02.7) was the men's second athlete to cross the line, placing fourth overall, while All-American Drew Bosley (24:21.8), last season's Big Sky men’s champ, and Brodey Hasty -- both sophomores -- placed eighth and ninth respectively. These three men have all finished within the top 10 at back-to-back conference meets.
“Those were well-executed races,” Smith said. “Individual wins are always huge for us, so I’m very happy for them.”
It doesn't sound like his top 4 under performed, so either it was the 5th, or he underestimated Southern Utah, or his top guys have issues.
Real Mike Smith Post Conference Interview:
Trust me..... wrote:
Luis, Nico, Blaise will all be rested and ready. In the long run, no one gives a hoot about Big Sky, but they will remember NCAAs if they win.
ABSOLUTELY, spot-on accurate assessment! There are things called priorities, and the NCAA meet is the priority. What the team did by letting their best have a rest and giving others a chance to gain valuable experience (which also can have an ego-boosting component) is not uncommon.
Yeah, I bet NAU expected to win, even with their biggest studs out for a rest, so there's little doubt that all the boys weren't exactly buoyant about the results, but if this team 2nd place by three points constitutes a "stunning" loss, well, then I think someone who is expert at hyperbole in making headlines for Letsrun should direct his skills towards headline writing for the NY Daily News instead.
tuccone wrote:
Wha? I get they didn’t run anybody but really? Did someone mess up the team scores?
LRC Note. This thread was started as a question - "NAU lost the big sky championships?" We changed the title to confirm it. Here are the results.
http://www.runnercard.com/results3/event?meetId=5759fc8d-1aee-4c3d-9845-fd34de319b22&eventId=039de6e7-10ff-4f2b-a40b-a0a51e0a4120&startTimingPointId=babc0e6c-e3c0-45ee-a97f-e5606a83f148&endTimingPointId=bd51541f-7444-4e86-ab05-5dd9bb9b7e03
It's pretty obvious Mike Smith isn't interested in a Big Sky title. He's got his eye on nationals.
Distance running is such a unique sport. Even these young healthy fit guys can only take so much pounding. A hard 8K can linger in those legs for a couple weeks. I'm sure his focus is on high quality workouts instead of a race that will leave his studs ragged.
Don’t sleep on my boy Stefen Rasmuson leading SUU watch out for him at NCAA.
macdaddy og 3 wrote:
tuccone wrote:
Yes. Which means now SUU will be ranked top 20 after doing virtually nothing except beating a NAU team that essentially threw the conference meet.
Someone’s salty
No sh!t I’m salty. What if my team doesn’t get in and SUU does after doing jack squat the entire year? You can best believe I’ll be pissed off.
tuccone wrote:
macdaddy og 3 wrote:
Someone’s salty
No sh!t I’m salty. What if my team doesn’t get in and SUU does after doing jack squat the entire year? You can best believe I’ll be pissed off.
+1
SUU does NOT deserve to be in NCAAs. NAU's "A" team smoked SUU by 100 points last week in Vegas. And a couple weeks before that at the FSU Winter Classic, SUU finished in 9th place behind some non NCAA qualifiers.
NAU playing games caused some other deserving team to be left out.
NAU can do whatever the f*** they want. They’re gonna win nationals, barring they don’t choke as hard as they did in 2019, and so if they want to sit some guys at conference so they are more rested then they have that right. If someone doesn’t make it because NAU got second at conference then they really don’t deserve to go to NCAAs.
OC4 wrote:
tuccone wrote:
No sh!t I’m salty. What if my team doesn’t get in and SUU does after doing jack squat the entire year? You can best believe I’ll be pissed off.
+1
SUU does NOT deserve to be in NCAAs. NAU's "A" team smoked SUU by 100 points last week in Vegas. And a couple weeks before that at the FSU Winter Classic, SUU finished in 9th place behind some non NCAA qualifiers.
EXACTLY.
I made no value judgements in my post but you sure did even though we said the same thing. I merely stated facts which somehow seemed to bother you.
DirtyT wrote:
NAU can do whatever the f*** they want. They’re gonna win nationals, barring they don’t choke as hard as they did in 2019, and so if they want to sit some guys at conference so they are more rested then they have that right. If someone doesn’t make it because NAU got second at conference then they really don’t deserve to go to NCAAs.
“They’re gonna win nationals”
I know a certain team from Utah who might prove you wrong.
SUU?