D2 Nationals: Who ya got?

I think UCCS's Afe Zeru will be good for second, but I agree with the Dillon take.

May the best baby win!!

Found the guy who ran D1 club. Hope your turkey trot went well.

Men:

1. Mines (it ain’t hot this year)

2. GV (always peaks well)

3. Colorado Christian (very underrated)

4. Wingate (where did these guys come from?)

Women:

1) Adams (unless they run like they did at regionals)

2) GV (praying Adams runs like they did at regionals)

3) Mines (at least the men won)

4) UCCS (yay trophy)

Festival years are the best years but with Adams State out of the mix every team moves up one spot.

1. Mines (Unless Powell drops out again)

2. Wingate (Ready for the big stage after finishing 6 last year)

3. Grand Valley (Tanner being the low stick helps a lot)

4. Colorado Christian (Regional Result proves they are legit)

5. Chico State (Has a chance for the podium but a little lesser than Colorado Christian)

6. Lee (Even without Noble they are going to have a better showing than last year)

Expect a little surprise in the girls race
#JerseyGirl

Mens Individual: Dillon Powell with Zeru in 2nd

Mens Team: Mines, GV, CCU, Chico or Augustana

Womens team: Adams, GV, Mines, UCCS or Augustana

Dillon Powell does not make it to 8k

Lacctic.com has Mines men scoring 35 points with all 7 in the top 16. Are these rankings completely inaccurate or is Mines capable of beating the field?

Know nothing about d2 other than Adams was wack and fb has good skiers but lacctic seems pretty good.

Mines will likely score a few more points but without Adams this may not be far off.

The course will be incredibly muddy especially for the women who race after the men. Expect some unexpected results.

Cole Nash "Alaska Man" sleeper to win.

Beyond actual predictions, I have a couple thoughts about the meet:

1 - I have no problem with DII doing their "festival" every 4 years for promotional reasons, but is it ideal to push back the XC season 2 weeks to do it? I assume they push it back to coordinate with other sports, but I question if it removes some of hype for DII because DI and DIII were run two weeks ago. Is the festival worth it?

2 - Perhaps more concerning, why in the world are the races going off on a Friday afternoon (1 PM, 2:15PM EST)?? Again, I assume (hope) this is for purposes relating to coordinating for the festival, but I really feel like this detracts from the live viewability of the race. Honestly I just feel like a lot more could have been done to make the race accessible to viewers. They couldn't just run it Saturday? Or, if the worry is overlap with NXN, then Friday evening? Sunday?

Overall I just feel like more can be done to promote the meet. IMO DII deserves more hype than it gets, but the way the meet is set up just isn't helping at all.

Thoughts?

They shouldn't be pushing back an outdoor event into December to accommodate an indoor event.

The races are perfectly normal times, it's just late on east coast bc it's in Seattle

I disagree. This builds more hype since D2 isn't having to compete for attention with D1

Just wanted to circle back on this

mines ftw, dillon jacobs ~29:30

Pretty dang close. Kudos