Projected Men's National Qualifiers (At-Large)

Does Nova have a good shot?

Wait, why does Syracuse get the individual at-large bids?? You see how fast the Mountain region was? At 5000ft. Berryhill said if anything, the course was long.

Why does everybody keep saying that Washington beat Cal? Wasn't it a tie at the PAC-10 meet?

jekyllman wrote:

Wait, why does Syracuse get the individual at-large bids?? You see how fast the Mountain region was? At 5000ft. Berryhill said if anything, the course was long.

At-large individual selection is based on placing at regionals. Miller and Busby were 9th and 10th at their region as the 5th and 6th individuals, so Bishop and Williams, who were 14th and 15th at the Mountain regionals, needed to finish a few places higher. Cross-regional time comparisons are never used in at-large individual selection.

The syracuse guys seem clear-cut as the at-large selections, but as you can see above my predictions aren't worth much, so I guess you never know until the official rulings come out.

Tiebreaker rule wrote:

NCAA matches runners 1-5 from each team when the score is tied and best 3 of 5 win. At Pac 10, Cal beat Washington, since 3 of Cal's top 5 were ahead of Washington's respective placers.

It's late at night so I may be missing something here so help me out if I'm wrong. I agree with the conclusion here but don't think we can use the "3 out of 5" tiebreaker. The NCAA XC Handbook talks about that rule only in breaking a tie between teams at the regional championship in order to advance one of them on to Nationals. Instead, for determining the award of points for the at-large bid process the discuss other tiebreakers: head-to-head, common opponents, and "fastest runner(s)."

The date range on head-to-head competition seems to include the Regional Meets. If so, then Cal edges Washington. Best I can tell, Cal edges UW in common opponents, too. Each have roughly identical marks against common teams with the exception of UCLA where Cal is 2-0 and UW is 2-1. Finally, Cal has placed the majority of their top two (or three) runners ahead of UWs in both the Pac10 and West Region meets. All this is to say that I don't see any way of awarding UW a point for the at-large process once Cal makes it into the National Meet. And if that's true, then UCLA does end up pushing UW into the Meet at the first opportunity.

Pham wrote:

Tiebreaker rule wrote:

NCAA matches runners 1-5 from each team when the score is tied and best 3 of 5 win. At Pac 10, Cal beat Washington, since 3 of Cal's top 5 were ahead of Washington's respective placers.

It's late at night so I may be missing something here so help me out if I'm wrong. I agree with the conclusion here but don't think we can use the "3 out of 5" tiebreaker. The NCAA XC Handbook talks about that rule only in breaking a tie between teams at the regional championship in order to advance one of them on to Nationals. Instead, for determining the award of points for the at-large bid process the discuss other tiebreakers: head-to-head, common opponents, and "fastest runner(s)."

Actually it also says:

"d. The committee will break regular season ties between teams under consideration

for the sole purpose of awarding wins (points) for the at-large selection process.

Ties are not to be broken by meet officials on published results. The committee will

apply the tie-breaking procedures outlined below."

jekyllman wrote:

Wait, why does Syracuse get the individual at-large bids?? You see how fast the Mountain region was? At 5000ft. Berryhill said if anything, the course was long.

The course was long, it was measured on tangents so if you didn't run it perfect it would have been long. Since the altitude conversion at 5,000ft for 10k is 65sec, you have some seriously fast teams. Too bad the other regions don't peak for the end of the year like the mountain region.

i read the whole pamphlet on how to qualify,

and they give the 2 extra at large spots to their choice

of athletes... but one way they select those two athletes is

amount of time behind the 4th qualifier in the region.

so the syracuse runners may not get it since they are 14 seconds or so out of qualifying, where the 5 and 6 guys in the mtn region are 8 and 9 seconds back.

i havent even checked the other 7 regions, but thats just one other option.

the new mexico runner and the airforce runner for the last 2 spots.

Both championship races will be broadcast live on CBS College Sports Network and streamed online via NCAA.com.

Why does everybody keep saying that Washington beat Cal? Wasn't it a tie at the PAC-10 meet? Excellent call, they tied and there is NO tiebreaker.

There is NO way the Mountain region course was long.

kprunner wrote:

i read the whole pamphlet on how to qualify,

and they give the 2 extra at large spots to their choice

of athletes...

From page 14 of the 2008 DIVISION I CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS HANDBOOK:

"At-large Selections. The committee will select two at-large individuals, by identifying the highest non-qualifying individual finishes at the regional meets. All individual at-large qualifiers must finish in the top 25 within their region."

kprunner wrote:

but one way they select those two athletes is amount of time behind the 4th qualifier in the region.

This is one of the methods they use to break ties for individual at-large qualifying, not an initial criterion.

good point.

and it looks like they took 7 from the northeast including both syracuse guys so i guess that settles all speculation and prediction

i was there wrote:

jekyllman wrote:

Wait, why does Syracuse get the individual at-large bids?? You see how fast the Mountain region was? At 5000ft. Berryhill said if anything, the course was long.

The course was long, it was measured on tangents so if you didn't run it perfect it would have been long. Since the altitude conversion at 5,000ft for 10k is 65sec, you have some seriously fast teams. Too bad the other regions don't peak for the end of the year like the mountain region.

This is how you are supposed to measure courses.

you left out UCLA and Cal Poly. Whats with the hate?

go back to your appartment with your cats!

well done lucky, well done

i was there wrote:

The course was long, it was measured on tangents so if you didn't run it perfect it would have been long.

Wrong. Please think before you post.

Courses are supposed to measured on tangents. The race distance is the shortest possible distance you can run. The fact that you were forced to run wider due to other people does not make the course long.

If a track runner goes out into lane 3 on a curve to pass someone, does that make the track long?