This is a HUGE factor. I remember talking with friends when Princeton men got 11th at NCAA XC in 2012. 11th is pretty solid, but that team woulda had Cabral, Joe Stilin, AND Brian Lung if they were allowed 5th years. Those 3 would have been the top 3 for a team that was 11th even without them! Top 10... Top 5? Maybe. And you can apply similar logic to every Ivy squad every year.
my two pennies wrote:
BOHICA wrote:
Ivy team made the podium at xc nationals since 2004? I know Princeton women with Cack Ferrell were good, just not remembering the year.
They were 5th in '08 and '09.
The last Ivy team on the podium was Dartmouth women in '97.
There's a lot to say on the Ivies, but here's my take:
1. Their teams are not as good as P5 schools. Obviously, there are exceptions, but on the whole, they cannot compete at the national level as a team.
2. This does not make them bad. All the Ivies are still top 50% of D1 programs, and there are usually multiple Ivy teams from both genders at the national meet.
3. They also produce top individuals. Some have already been mentioned, but the Ivy League has produced many sub-4:00 milers, All-Americans, and national champions. This indicates it's not that the coaching is bad or the program is bad, but rather there are other factors playing into their lack of team success.
4. No other D1 school has the barriers to success that the Ivies do. The academics are extremely rigorous, yes, but the more important thing is the complete lack of athletic scholarships. Sure, they can get good athletes to come there for the academics, but for the actual TOP athletes, they'll never pull them. Why would a 4:05 junior commit there when Stanford is offering him 50-75% and is the same quality school? And even if a runner like that doesn't go for Stanford, schools like UCLA, Notre Dame, Duke, Georgetown, Villanova, Michigan, UVA, UNC, etc. etc. are only one step down academically and have plenty of money to go around. So you end up with a lot of good, but not great, athletes headed to the Ivies. 1:51-1:53, 4:10-4:15, 9:00-9:20, etc. Some of them, like Kyle Merber (1:53 and 4:12) and Kieran Tuntivate (4:11 and 9:06) go on to run very fast in college. But for the most part, guys like these will not break 4:00 even if they have a great collegiate career, and then once you factor in the academic casualties you see why Ivies struggle to even get more than a couple athletes under 4:05 and are never competitive as a team on the national level.
Great take, I actually agree with all of this. I'd even add "iffy coaching" to #4, but that's been notably true at too many P5 and G5 programs, too.
Just from the last two years, from those two teams Fisher, Kirk, Blanks, Monte, Baker, O’Brien, Farrell, Fluery could have gone basically anywhere they wanted.
go to a good school, redshirt a year, get an education, if you still think you have running potential at 22, go to oregon for a 5th year
Corona Bookie wrote:
Ummmm.... ever heard of Kyle Merber?
Ummmm... ever heard of Abby D'agostino?
Ummmm... ever heard of Don Cabral?
As was stated in my post, "most". Kieran was an exception as was Kyle, Abbey, and Donn (yes, with two nn's) Try to keep up.
That’s all right That’s ok. You’re going to work for me Some day.
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