Which team got screwed the most?

Type it again, real slow...yer saying the teams that earned their way to Terrible Hoat should bail out because there are teams that "deserve" to go, but neglected the performance aspect of the dance?

I suppose I'm partial to those poor downtrodden souls down in Starkville.

Erbli wrote:

Type it again, real slow...yer saying the teams that earned their way to Terrible Hoat should bail out because there are teams that "deserve" to go, but neglected the performance aspect of the dance?

I suppose I'm partial to those poor downtrodden souls down in Starkville.

No i'm not saying that. I'm saying that there have to be some ranked teams or some very good teams for whatever reason don't have points and would do well at the nationals and aren't going. No system is perfect. I just want to know which teams were the big losers (or winners this weekend). Who is the highest ranked team not going to nationals? Did they choke at regionals? or did they just not have any at large points to go?

Were there any teams that had to get an auto spot to go and they did?

For exam

You totally missed the point.

"some very good teams for whatever reason don't have points"

This should pretty much answer your own question. If they were a pretty good team they would have the points. This system has been in place for several years now. There are no surprises on what you need to do if you are not an auto type team.

To answer your original question, no one got screwed.

Actually some teams do get "screwed", but it isn't that bad.

The system operates on two assumptions, which do not always hold:

1) There are sufficient inter-regional races for teams. Pre-nationals fulfills most of this, and for those teams that don't race outside their region, it is largely their fault.

2) The relative level of the teams must remain constant over the season. When you have teams which suck early in the year and then do well at regionals, you get all sorts of wacky points allocated largely by chance. For example, Dartmouth got in one year for twice beating an Alabama team sans Kimani.

Overall the system works pretty well. The discrepencies and "screwed" teams are usually in the 20+ ranked range. No team contending for the top 10 gets screwed. At this point it becomes a matter of how much trouble do you want to go through to ensure that the 25th ranked team doesn't get displaced by the 33rd ranked team. But, there is still plenty of room for debate as to which team got the short end of the stick this year.

At-large bids are gifts, teams that receive them most certainly won't be in the top 10 at nationals, as Simon Tam has indicated. Nobody "deserves" to go to nationals, they have to earn it. The only thing they get "screwed" out of is a chance to be tourists and get by far the worst buttkicking they've had all season.

was wondering just what is wrong with getting screwed? I've had a few in my day and even the bad ones were pretty good. She even smiled as we parted...

Anybody care to answer the actual question rather than quibling over the definition of "screwed". It could be an interesting discussion if we ever actually get there. I personally would have enjoyed seeing NC state at nationals. Just 'cause they've been there every year since 1994. But they didn't get screwed - they ran poorly all year and almost pulled it out at the end with a solid regionals performance.

Michigan looks like the highest ranked team to miss out (#17) but deservedly so with a very poor performance at regionals - Are Portland in - if not then they did get "screwed". In my opinion the biggest flaw with the current system is that it places to much emphasis on early season performances. We'll never have a perfect system but I think a fundamental component of good coaching is the ability to peak ayour team at the right time.

"teams that receive them most certainly won't be in the top 10 at nationals". Not always the case.

GL Region 2002

1. Wisco

2. EMU

3. CMU

4. Indiana

5. Ohio St

6. Michigan

NCAA 2002

8. Michigan

9. CMU

If you look at 03 and 04 also, some of the GL at large have been top 15 at NCAA so they are not weak tourist teams.

[quote]-|-|-|- wrote:

At-large bids are gifts, teams that receive them most certainly won't be in the top 10 at nationals, quote]

Three Letters

BYU

They are an At-Large team this year. They would have to fall on their face big time to not be a top ten team.

answer the question wrote:

Anybody care to answer the actual question

I guess you need to be hit over the head with it: NOBODY.

I probably should have inserted "on the podium" where I put "in the top 10" as the point was that the race really wouldn't be greatly affected by their absence.

the teams that get screwed the most are the ones that have to throw in mid year down weeks so they can have a micropeak at prenats or other big races so that they can ensure themselves a spot at nations because they aren't sure they are going to nationals where as the beasts don't have to go all out at any race other than nationals. arkansas, colorado, wisco, stanford, zona, etc. have had some good races so far most of them have probably had better uninterrupted training than some weaker teams that needed to get some points early on.

Redskins got screwed the most

Every year a lot of very fast individual XC runners don’t make Nationals simply because they were not a member of a top team. Taking the 31 top teams and only 38 of the fastest individuals not on those 31 teams is unfair. Fast XC runners should not have to limit their college selection to a 20-top XC school to have a fair chance of qualifying for Nationals.

It would be much fairer if 25 teams and 80 individuals were selected (for the same total of 255 runners). Only having 2 “at large" selections for individuals is especially unfair. I’d like to see 6 individuals taken from each region (54 runners) along with another 26 individuals selected “at large”.

Many individuals in strong regions are not going to Nationals even though they are much faster than nearly all the runners on the 26th thru 31st teams. Is that fair?

One example: Yale’s Lindsey Donaldson (8th in NE region meet this weekend) won’t be going to Nationals unless Providence earns an at large team spot (that’s kind of iffy). Donaldson only had a fair race at Regionals. She finished 6th last year at Nationals and lost to top ranked Carol Bierbaum by only 3 seconds two weeks ago at the Ivy League Championship. But this weekend Donaldson got beat by 5 runners, all of which can seriously contend to win NCAAs next week (1st Crombie, 2nd Stublic, 3rd Bierbaum, 4th Gwyther, 5th Scherf) and two other top-30 runners (6th Hoban and 7th Schorr). Of the 7 runners that beat Donaldson, only two were on an auto qualifying team (Stublic & Bierbaum of Columbia). If Providence gets an at large team spot, then Donaldson will go to Nationals. But that’s not guaranteed. Providence entered few competitive meets this season which will hurt them in getting enough “points” to obtain an at large selection. But Providence’s scheduling mistake is hurting a top runner from Yale who just happened to have a slightly off day in a highly competitive region.

The real problem here is the "region" concept. The fastest teams and the fastest individuals should be competing at Nationals -- based on their season performances (ideally weighted more toward late season performances). What region a team or individual comes from should not enter into the selection process. The 38th to 80th fastest individual runners (not on a top-25 team) will blow away nearly all the runners on the 26th thru 31st fastest teams.

Another example: On the men's side, the Mid-Atlantic Region has no ranked teams yet gets two teams entered as auto qualifiers (Georgetown and American). The strong West and Great Lakes regions each have 6 ranked teams but the West’s #24 ranked Cal/Poly and #28 Cal-Berkley and the Great Lake’s #23 Michigan will not earn at large selections. If the NCAA must stick with its “region” concept, it would be fairer if they auto qualified only the wining team at Regionals and then “at large” selected another 16 teams for a total of 25.

gtown is #9 and american is #27

Well, it's fair enough. NCAA cross has always been more about teams than it is about individuals, as it should be. Wisco's or CU's 5th man would beat the 6th individual not on a qualifying team from more than one regional. All those individuals (80, as you propose) would detract more from nationals than they would add to it.

Loyola, they are going to get rocked at nationals

cry me a river wrote:

Well, it's fair enough. NCAA cross has always been more about teams than it is about individuals, as it should be.

Hmm, but the tiebreaker that gets Tennessee in over Princeton is the performance of their top individual. They've never run against each other and have no common opponents. Princeton runners finished 5th & 6th in the MA regional and Tennessee's #1finished 3rd in their regional. Seems a strange way to decide a tie to me since the individuals concerned all make at larges anyway?