The Insider wrote:
The fact of the matter is that Cornell wouldn't finish in the top 5 at "baby nationals".
Well, if we're talking about DIII Nationals...
Last year, the NYU men won the DIII meet. (I live in NYC now and its easy to follow NYU's results.)
I'll leave it to someone else to compare times at similar venues (keeping in mind that the NYU men ran on a different VCP course than the Cornell men, a course 30 to 60 seconds faster than the "regular" VCP course that Cornell ran), but I am fairly confident that last year's Cornell team could have handled the Violets--who were a truly outstanding DIII team--without too much trouble.
If the top Ivy teams, say the top two or three, were somehow plopped down into the DIII championship meet, they assuredly would be contenders for the trophies. Not a knock on DIII!--they've got talented and dedicated athletes--but the best DIII teams would find it difficult to beat the best Ivies, which don't have athletic scholarships but do have great financial aid, great academics, and great name recognition, and which recruit nationally.