Will the Brothers Johnson be giving us a detailed NCAA post-race discussion concerning this....?

It had to have been that insipid virus commonly refered to as East Coast Bias. I hear there was a particularly bad strain of it going around this year.

Concerned Letsrun Citizen wrote:

http://www.letsrun.com/2007/ncaapreview1118.php

Just curious, because I was a little shocked by the rationale and the depth to which they went in trying to bring Oregon down before the race. Was this a ploy or were they seriously discounting Oregon's phenomenal roster and seasonal results?

Your mistake is in believing that they know more about this than the many seasoned track and field and distance runners here, do. We all make educated guesses. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose............as Wejo did. Isn't that why sports are so much fun. We just don't know!

The main point of the article was to try and say that Oregon was not a lock to win the race like all the coaches were saying. Oregon however brought their "A+" game on Monday and deserved to win. The Mercado brothers stepped up big time.

i can see their rationale for thinking oregon would lose, but gee whiz there was quite a lot of bashing on Oregon.

"Yes, they did win the Pac 10s. But big deal, the next best team is 13th ranked Stanford. Beating Stanford doesn't prove anything this year."

Whoaa!

"We can understand why people are voting for the Ducks to win, but to make them a unanimous #1? You've got to be kidding. What have the Ducks done all year to justify their unanimous #1 ranking? Nothing besides duck all serious competition at the PreNats and win some meaningless early season meet at home."

OK! (Did any other region have more teams and individuals at nationals?) Ducks cruised to west region win without Diego, who most new would be their 3rd or 4th man.

"It's the LetsRun.com's official view that if there is an overwhelming favorite at nationals on the men's side, it's definitely not Oregon. We think far too many people have read one too many Steve Prefontaine books."

Or followed the season, looked at the rosters and looked at Lanana's big meet performance resume.

"Many people might claim that Oregon appears to have the best one-two punch in the country in Galen Rupp the favorite for the individual crown, and Shadrack Kiptoo-Biwott. Our response is: Maybe (People forget Kiptoo was a disaster at NCAAs last year)"

But are they forgetting that Rupp barely outkicked him at footlocker nationals in high school, or that he was 14th at NCAA's 3 years ago, or that he just beat Rupp at Pac-10's? Despite it being Rupp's debut race and not running with the killer mentality that's still big.

"But even if it's true, they will need it as the rest of their team on paper does not stack up well versus the top 5 of some of the other teams. Seriously, it's likely Oregon will need to be scoring 3 against everyone else's 5 to win on Monday."

Did you guys really think so? They have a better 3-12 than anyone else in the country. You really don't think at the final meet in which Lanana's team (repeat Lanana's NCAA team) was preparing for they weren't going to have a couple guys out of that group rested and ready?

Well maybe not, but most of us did.

"And yet everyone expects them to win handily as more than two times as many people have picked them to win as the rest of the field combined. It makes no sense. In our mind"

Fair enough, but despite it not making any sense that they could possibly, just maybe, squeack by with an upset and win (strangely they did) do you think you might dedicate a page with photos to the vicors now? I've never seen as much homage paid to a victor as I just did for the pre-race darkhorse...errr....favorites at Iona.

Men's recap here:

http://www.letsrun.com/2007/ncaarecap1119.php

Props to the Mercado twins

Looks like the Mercados and Klotz really surpassed the form charts and made 'em eat crow. Iona actually ran just about as well as I thought they could, but lost to a team that ran better. I tried to be as rational as I could when I picked places for each of the runners of the top teams for that contest, and based on my individual picks, Iona came out on top. But for some reason, I still picked Oregon FTW. I figured they probably had 2 guys in front of Iona's first and their 6-7 were better, so they had more guys who could possibly come through for them, which is what happened. I wouldn't blame anyone for picking Iona, though. They had 5 extremely good runners. All that said, props to the Ducks. Winning is never easy even when you're heavier favorites than they were. Ask Wisconsin. Or Duke's chicks a couple of years ago. It takes a clutch performance to actually win the thing on race day, even if it's expected, because we all know if something goes wrong with one of your go-to guys in this race, you're hosed.