INSANE times at Patriot League Championships

Last four year BU point total:

2017: 152

2018: 113

2019: 52

2020-21: 47

I'd say your prediction of scoring 20pts each year would be in the cards as they are heading in the right direction.

I think the question is that if these times are legit then those runners are contenders to be top 10 in the nation. Looking bigger picture than winning the league.

Yes, if the winner of the women's race Ashlyn Ramos of Bucknell earns All-American next week or is close to it then we know this race was no fluke and the patriot league is here to play

It doesn't look like the toughest course out there.

https://patriotleague.org/documents/2021/3/3//Goodman_Road_XC_Course.pdf

The course was definitely off. No way Army's top guy could run 23:02 for 8k. He got pummeled by Navy a few weeks ago in the 3k, not even his cheater shoes could make him go that fast.

HesABeta wrote:

The course was definitely off. No way Army's top guy could run 23:02 for 8k. He got pummeled by Navy a few weeks ago in the 3k, not even his cheater shoes could make him go that fast.

He ran 14:11 in the 5k as a freshman, now he's a junior. He was only 2.5 seconds behind JP Trojan and 1 second behind Dragon of Syracuse in Battle of Beantown in the fall. Dragon was 10th in the ACC with a 23:30. So he's literally equal to Syracuse's best runners.

And that wasn't even in Army's championship season. Malleck of BU won a gold medal in the U20 Pan-Am 1500, but Beatty put 12 seconds on him over the last mile of the race.

Someone must be a navy fan/sore loser... If Navy is so good how come they didn't make it to the start line?

COVID!

Eyes are looking Goodr wrote:

Lafayette Men in 3rd place...someone go check on Satan and see how he’s handling the cold spell.

This was a shock. They were only 24 points behind Boston for 2nd. Hell of a job by the Lafayette men and their coach.

This is a great jump for the Lafayette program. Too bad there wasn’t a dual meet with Lehigh this year.

It's XC. Times are not important. It's all about what place you achieved because it is a team event. Courses are different. Weather is a factor. I'd rather finish 1st in 27 minutes 8K than 22nd and run 24 minutes on an 8K course. Especially since XC courses are notoriously inaccurate in distance.

..... wrote:

How did BU win and not Army for women.???47-47… looks like Army wins 6 runner tie breaker 26-28.

If there is a tie in a championship/advancing meet, the placements of runners 1-5 of one team are compared to the placements of the top 1-5 of the other team. Whichever team wins the majority of these individual matchups wins the tiebreaker. This makes a more direct and fair comparison of the tied teams by removing all other competitors from the equation.

*Note: 6-7th placers for each team can displace a team's points if they are ahead of any 1-5 runner of that team, but they cannot be scored themselves.

This rule makes scoring more team-based than individual. Instead of 2 individuals determining the entire outcome of a championship meet, the teams are compared by who ran faster overall. The 1-5 matchup method has the same outcome as adding the times of each scoring team member together and comparing this value to the other team (find who's 1-5 was faster).

TL/DR:

Placement determined by points of all competitors, ties broken by comparing cumulative team times.

Beatty has run 14:07 /30:49 for 5/10k and Ramos has run 9:55/17:02 for 3k/5k. This course was short there is no question about it.

I heard it is because he was butting heads with the Head Director Gabe Sanders and Gabe told him to leave or else. A little immature if you ask me, why would you get rid of the coach who has built such a good program up?

RunnerMan123 wrote:

I heard it is because he was butting heads with the Head Director Gabe Sanders and Gabe told him to leave or else. A little immature if you ask me, why would you get rid of the coach who has built such a good program up?

Sanders thinks he's a big deal because he worked at Stanford. Spangler thinks he's a big deal because he worked at Florida.

My guess is Gabe is taking scholarships away from the distance program.

aztec the moronic wrote:

Boston should win the women's championship with less than 20 points every year. They are fully funded, they have the fastest indoor track in the country (hosting world record attempts yearly), and are in an amazing city. They collect international athletes and always have 5th year seniors in a league where no other schools have graduate programs.

I am far more impressed that the Army women were able to tie them. These women have to do so much on top of their training. That said, the Lafayette women 4th with no scholarships is damn impressive too.

I have some old contacts at BU, and can speak to the inaccuracy of your post.

Their XC program is not "fully funded." In fact, funding has been reduced significantly this year, with much less scholarship availability and equipment. Very few of the current XC men and women joined the team at BU with scholarship offers. Some of them may have been awarded scholarships after winning PL last year, but this is a pretty standard practice for D1 programs.

The TTC has been off-limits since Covid-19 safety protocols were enacted, so BU's athletes haven't been able to use their facilities for about a year. XC training and races are not conducted indoors or on a track anyways (except possible interval workouts), so these facilities serve no advantage. In a race setting, sure, they run faster times on their indoor track than on flat tracks, but so do their competition who shares the same racing surface.

If you check the news or hear through word of mouth, the city of Boston is extremely strict with its mask mandate, as is BU, so these athletes have been training in masks since last spring, which is a major disadvantage. I read that they are still unable to meet in groups larger than 9 for practice. I have also heard that most of BU's normal routes are not usable due to concerns about social distancing. It may be an "amazing city," but I don't see how a city campus is advantageous over other locations, particularly during a pandemic.

Regarding international athletes and fifth years, all you need to do to disprove yourself is look at their roster. On the women's side, there are only 2 international students (Cyprus and Sweden), and only 1 competed at PL this year. The women have no 5th years this season. On the men's side, there are 4 international students (3 Canadian, 1 Australian), with 2 competing at PL. There is only one 5th year on the men's side, and I believe they were an injury redshirt (haven't confirmed this). There were no 5th years on either side last year.

Instead of making excuses for why your team didn't win, think about how much work you put in, then realize BU's women must have done even more work to be able to win PL twice in a row. There should be more mutual respect along with the competitive rivalries. Don't tear down a highly-competitive school without at least making sure your statements hold water. There are so many factors and so much time that goes into creating a winning team. To dismiss a victory as unfair based on shoddy evidence is disrespectful to the women who worked hard for that win. IMO, every team in the PL competed impressively well, especially given the unusual circumstances of this past year.

TL/DR:

Your claims are false, stop making lame excuses, move on.

Aztec the moronic lives up to their name.

..... wrote:

ok I'm a HS coach never had to deal with this.. Its always been 6 th runner for us. so just to make sure I get this…. its whoever has the most "wins"in their top 5 vs the other team so BU's 1-2 -5 runner were ahead of Army's so they win that 3-2 and that is tie breaker ?

Yes, that's a pretty accurate summary. Same result as comparing cumulative time for each team. I posted a much more long-winded answer somewhere else too.

If you look at the splits for the women's race it is clear that something is terribly off even though the GPS of the road course claims to 3.7 miles. The final split of .9 miles for Ramos was run in 3:51.... That is 4:24 mile pace (I even rounded down to 1400 meters to be on the safe side). If anyone can explain how that legitimately happens at the end of a women's "3.7 mile" race, I expect they can also disprove gravity...

I think the implication was that Boston has a massive recruiting advantage. Which is true. If their coach were to take full advantage of all their resources they have then they could be better. For example, why is UMASS Lowell better than Boston U? Lowell is a terrible place to live, bad academics, no indoor track, and they've only been Division 1 for 4 years. But Lowell got an individual male auto-qualified for NCAAs and an at large male and female qualified.