NAIA XC/TF 2024-25

thank you for doing this and great work.

You should be the NAIA preseason rater (because the way they have been doing it sucks = the AD's at each school simply take the previous seasons final ranking and submit them for the next year's ranking; that is to say they do ZERO research, even into their own schools.)

I would suggest you submit your preseason ranking to the NAIA just to see if they will use them because the ranking do matter and it can takes half a season for an over or under ranked team to be weeded out.

I'll give credit where credit's due, orr maybe just admit it's a bit more difficult than I thought...

But I'll be the first to say these rankings aren't easy ESPECIALLY the preseason ones. The way my men's side looks currently, I think there's going to be at least a few schools and that you guys will heavily disagree with, and I'll probably have a few teams that I'm dead wrong on.

The lack of coverage just makes it so hard to keep track of who's going where in the NAIA. I've been evaluating teams one conference at a time, and the first conference I did on both sides was Crossroads. I finished up Huntington's women to find out just days later that almost nobody on that team was returning after they finished 5th the year before.

On top of that it's hard to gauge how some of these team's track success will translate over to cross country, and I'm not even just referring to mid-distance. Some of these teams out west ran some phenomenal times in the 5k but have had no success in cross country. Who knows what that could mean, maybe: A. They just had a breakout season, B. They can't run that extra 3k or they struggle on a course, or C. These teams just don't run well in the fall.

On top of that coaching changes and recovery from injury also plays a huge role. IWU is actually a little bit of a wild card for me this year. If Braden Sweet comes out rolling on all cylinders I could rationalize having them ranked second. If he's out again I could see ranking them around 8th. We also don't know how this team runs under Beiler. Maybe Beiler can get them to peak perfectly and get the most out of their talent, but on the other hand they might have a tough time adjusting to his training and having a tough year.

While I'll definitely say a lot of coaches put ZERO effort into these preseason rankings and it shows, but I can understand why these rankings look so bad in the preseason.

It seems like every year the raters just copy the results from last year and change a few spots if there’s a team that loses a ton. They don’t take track season or new runners into consideration.

I guarantee that Milligan is ranked first coming in again this year.

Most raters (I think actually all raters) are coaches from a school in the conference.

More of the flaw comes from how the rankings work. You’re not allowed to rank teams in a different order for the National ranking than they’re ranked in the conference ranking.

This is pretty dumb because if I’m ranking teams for my conference I’m ranking them for how they would run AT THE CONFERENCE MEET which in many cases has less than 10 teams competing. Doing national rankings I’d be obviously rating teams based on how they’d compete at nationals which is a 36 team field. The team that’s better in the 8 team field might be different than the team that’s the best in the 36 team field.

I'm out on IWU early on unless they show me something. Top 10? Sure. Top 5? Seems like a stretch right now.

Dordt should be taking a step forward, even with Shippy graduating. Hopefully they actually get out and race against some competition outside the GPAC this year.

Silva being back for OKC is huge and he is the favorite to win individually - but do they have anyone else coming in?

Montreat men and women both look extremely competitive. I don't know if people appreciate what Hincher was doing at Tabor and on top of inheriting a pretty solid base, a handful of Blue Jays are coming with.

I don't have much to add about Cumberlands. They have all the talent and funding you can basically want in the NAIA. Let's see if #SowderKnows.

Who's missing?

Based solely on who is returning, St. Mary is definitely in the conversation to once again be a trophy team with the amount of depth they have returning. The Masters should also be in the mix with the depth they had last year. I also agree that IWU will be top ten but i’m not sure about a trophy team. Dordt, College of Idaho, and Eastern Oregon are also going to be top teams to watch as well. I do not have much knowledge of incoming recruits so there could definitely be other teams that can be up there with the teams I listed, however when just looking at returners these teams are all going to be very strong.

Cumberlands seems to be the heavy favorite to win. Assuming Asslouj, Madeo, and Shevchenko are all returning they are going to have the fastest top 3 in the nation. They also already had plenty of depth last year, and it is very safe to assume they are adding a lot talent with new recruits for this year.

IWU will struggle this XC season. They have a bunch of injuries with their top kids and haven't gotten much training this summer.

I wouldn't count IWU out from the top 5. On paper they still look very strong, but they're a bit hard to put a number on now. Keep in mind Vernot ran 14:27 at the end of track while Wasnich and Bantz both broke 15 in the 5k at the end of the year.

OKC took 10th place last year without a single All-American, and it looks like they bring all seven of their athletes from last year back and add Silva. That depth behind Silva definitely makes them a trophy contender on paper. Hartis, Boulanger, and Devany all had strong track seasons as well which should help boost them.

Montreat should be exciting to watch this year but I think I have them a bit lower in the rankings than you do. We'll have to see how Ethan Stamey and some of the other Montreat guys recover from a rough track season.

St. Mary is also really interesting. Chris Metz was a cross country All-American who suffered from sciatica during track, but he should be fully recovered soon. Liam Neidig and Luis Perez two years ago had some solid cross country races but didn’t run well in cross country last season. On top of that, I think Tommy Baker and Daniel Pantoja are in for big seasons based on what they did during track. They have one of the highest ceilings of any team in the NAIA.

I’m also not very high on Dordt. They had a pretty underwhelming track season. Becker was great in mid distance, while Vorster was about where you’d expect him to be in the 5k and 10k, but beyond that they were pretty disappointing. Davelaar regressed from where he was in high school and it seems like Summerhays wasn’t 100% most of the season.

Cumberlands is still the heavy favorite, but it looks like they have a few of their top returners from last cross country season recovering from injuries, so it’s hard to predict where they are. On top of that, most of their new recruits only have mid distance times listed on their world athletics pages, making it pretty hard to assume what exactly they’d run in an 8k. Also, I have to wonder if they’ll be able to get everyone eligible right away since they struggled with that for so long last year.

Eastern Oregon also had a bit of a disappointing track season from a few key guys (namely Cristian Mendoza, who seemed to be seriously injured) and Winston Telford is transferring to Milligan. I don’t have them as a title/trophy contender as of now.

College of Idaho could be a trophy contender depending on how Daniel Butler returns. They also could use an upgrade at their 5th spot right now. They look pretty strong through 4.

I’m surprised nobody has mentioned Milligan yet. While they lose Jones and Stockley they are getting Blake Hipkiss and Winston Telford as transfers. Bryson Lewis had a little bit of an underwhelming track season, but he was an xc All-American as a freshman and Bryn Woodall who placed 6th in cross last year is returning as well. They also just always seem to perform well when it matters the most.

The Master's is going to be really deep this year too, and they return Jack Anderson who was one of the top finishers at nationals last year.

I did not realize that about OKC, that will be very interesting to see how they do as a team now that they have Silva.

What about Kiprurui at Cumberlands as well? He has to be a consideration. St. Mary will be tough as will Milligan and Montreat. IWU has a ton of talent, but a history of underperforming. With Fullerton, Neideck, Vernot, Wasnich, Sweet x2, and Jackson, they are loaded.

In my opinion, Taylor is a team to keep an eye on. They are young, tough, and have a history of big jumps in improvement. Their track season was tough. I'd also watch Kansas Wesleyan. Maybe not a trophy team, but a good one.

I don't think the dude that couldn't even be an all American in track is going to push Everett Silva

Aslouj might. Kipkirui isn't that good and he's a horrifically dumb racer.

From what I’ve heard Kipkurui left Cumberlands

What’s all the Kansas Wesleyan hype about? I’ve heard so many people overrating them. Look at their track season only 2 guys under 4 in the 1500, none under 15 in the 5k, and none under 32 in the 10k. It doesn’t look like they have any big recruits either

Embry-Riddle is a good top 10 contender, not much of a trophy team but from their most recent track season they look good.

Agree big time. They have some depth problems but if they could solve that they're a legitimate very good team. Without shoring up the depth their results could really vary from one meet to another.

I hope we get to see them against some more top-ranked NAIA teams.

Where??

If Luca Madeo and Asslouj aren’t in top shape at the Cumberlands, it will be almost impossible to win the title for them.

Whole Cumberlands know that and I am excited to see if these two „long-distance stars“ can lead Cumberland to the title or not…

I heard Cumberlands got brought in 3 racewalkers who can also run 24:00 for 8k

If true doesn't appear to be much of a loss does it.