NCAA XC behind the numbers

How the hell do you find the time to do all this ?

thanksgiving break allows for useless interesting enterprises

puskedra was 8;41 and 14;46 for the 3 and 5 km in '08 and '09.

however...

in '08 >> 23'37 and 29;28 for 8 and 10 km.

in '09 >> 23;47 and 30;02.

29;28 would have also have placed luke 5th this year, 3rd instead of 17th team place.

like luke, allie mclaughlin place 5th at footlocker and 5th at ncaa xc as a first year.

daniel chenowith was 42nd in '08 and '09.

So... any conclusions on what is the best way to run Regionals?

Not on muddy courses.

Comparisons with Regionals need to be made with caution. It is a qualifying race. Running hard to make it makes sense if you don't go if you take it easy. If you do not have to bust your butt to get in, why do so.

The way to run regionals is to run as slowly as possible and still qualify. Or to not run at all and still qualify if your team has the depth / region is so weak. I'm looking at you Arkansas and Oklahoma State.

10k beats you up a lot more than 8k. Guys basically come through at almost their 8k pace and then try to hang on. So running two 10k's in regionals and nationals is a bitch. Especially if you have to run hard at regionals.

That's part of the reason the mid-atlantic teams never seem to do as well as they should at nationals. There are too many teams in the region and it's too competitive.

Stanford could and should have just cruised at regionals like Oklahoma State did. OSU ran the pace of the 3rd man from the second best team which was the pace of OSU's 6th man (well actually closer to their 7th).

Why must NCAAs be so close to regionals? Running 2 10Ks in 10 days is a lot and all but ensures non-optimal performance. NCAAs should be this upcoming Saturday.

First of all, anyone who knows anything about XC knows you can't compare times from one XC course to another, so such-and-such region ran 40 seconds faster at NCAA while so-and-so region ran 20 seconds slower may be a function of fatigue, but is more likely a function of the region course.

The Truth Hurts wrote:

That's part of the reason the mid-atlantic teams never seem to do as well as they should at nationals. There are too many teams in the region and it's too competitive.

Second, the quote above is absurd. I'm not implying that Mid-Atlantic is not a difficult region, but the quote implies that no other region is as difficult and thus teams from the other regions will be less fatigued for NCAA because they didn't have to work hard to get there. Cases in point: Oregon had to run hard at region and still ran well at NCAA. Shouldn't it have struggled at NCAA? Arkansas coasted in its region yet was bottom third at NCAA. Shouldn't it have run well?

Third, G-town (except Bumby, who is nails) stunk up the joint again.

Any time comparisons between the nationals course and the mid atlantic and especially the northeast courses for regionals is worthless.

Did you see pictures from those courses? See if you can find the link to the pictures of the NE regional course. It was under a foot of water and mud. There was no hope of running fast on that course by anyone. And even "only" running 31 min on that course was likely to absolutely tear up a number of guys. running through that kind of slop and then 9 days later competing at nationals probably did not allow enough recovery for those guys. I know, excuses excuses, you have to take what you're given. But that NE course was ridiculous. I wasn't surprised to see 'Cuse and Iona run below what others expected.

I agree 100%. Here's the 'Cuse pictures from NE regionals.

http://www.digitalphotoconcept.com/2009_NCAA_Northeast_Region_XC_Championship_Syracuse_PC_Franklin_Park.htm

[quote]The Truth Hurts wrote:

That's part of the reason the mid-atlantic teams never seem to do as well as they should at nationals. There are too many teams in the region and it's too competitive. "

The mid-atlantic is def on par with the south as being the weakest. Yes there are many teams but it is pretty weak. Outside of Nova, G-Town there aren't really solid teams. Don't know where you pulled that out of. The most difficult region is obviously the west with its incredible depth.

I partly agree here but give the quoted poster some ground too. In regions where you have to burn your matches to qualify, you diminish your ability to race well the next week. You can't have your 3/4/5/6 guys running at their max to qualify and then expect that at least three of them will be ready to improve for Nationals. Look at the teams that take Regionals seriously but 'studiously', the latter term used as several posters here have correctly pointed out that making sure you qualify is the goal, nothing more (well, a little Regional pride helps recruiting).

I think you are confusing competitiveness with difficulty. The teams in mid-Atlantic may not be the best, but there is more parity thus creating a race where teams have to run much harder to make it every year than in other regions. Now to fair, G'town and Villanova were the class of the field and everyone else was bunched together. G'town and Nova also decided to race hard (or had to at the start to get out ahead of the other teams) when they really should have just coasted. Were St Joe's or Navy or La Salle going to knock them out? Not this year. But G'town is not a Stanford or Oregon. If they sandbag it too much or have a bad day, they aren't making it to NCAAs.

The Northeast is also an example of this. 36 teams (8-10 more than most regions) compete. Iona and Providence usually are locks and now Syracuse but all the teams really battle it out to try to get the third spot.

Arkansas and Texas are the perfect examples. They are not very good yet their region is so weak they make it in every year and still don't have to run hard at regionals. How do you think McDonnell always got them in while resting two or three of his key guys every year? There are only 19 teams in the region (about 7-9 less than others) and they are truly terrible. Who got third in the South Central? Lamar. And they were only 9 points behind Texas. Arkansas' 3rd man was 7th at the regional and 197th at NCAAs.

The West is an odd case. The top 3 teams Stanford, Oregon, Portland are so good they are always locks. No one else can run at that level in the region so the top teams can take it easy if they choose.

I also did NOT compare times across regionals in any of my comments. What I DID compare (for those of you that can read) are how much faster teams who ran the SAME regional did when they got to Nationals. So NCAA was X faster than northeast regional or Y seconds faster than west regional.

Good analysis. Some people just don't get it. If runner Joe runs 3 minutes slower at ncaas while on average runners from his region ran 20 seconds faster then Joe blew up at the big dance, regardless of conditions, course, and region difficulty. By comparing average differences we can safely ignore the fixed factors that affected all of the runners.

Heyyo wrote:

Good analysis. Some people just don't get it. If runner Joe runs 3 minutes slower at ncaas while on average runners from his region ran 20 seconds faster then Joe blew up at the big dance, regardless of conditions, course, and region difficulty. By comparing average differences we can safely ignore the fixed factors that affected all of the runners.

I understand that, and I'm not trying to be an ass (I can do that without trying!), but he really doesn't cover all the runner Joes in all cases. For instance, in mid-Atlantic, he only discusses Gtown. I think Gtown stunk it up, so I say Bumby ran what he should have and everyone else ran too slow. He says a few guys ran what they should have and Bumby ran faster. Yet there's no perspective on the entire region to draw either conclusion. My conclusion, then, is based upon the fact that for the past five years, virtually everyone from Gtown except Bumby has underachieved at NCAA.

I do appreciate the research, and it's certainly interesting and thought-provoking, but I sould suggest there's not enough data presented to necessarily reach his conclusions.

Interesting analysis. Also, the Syracuse pictures from the NE Regional are fantastic.

The truth hurts - your point about the south central and the mid atlantic seems a bit off. First of all, the number of teams in a region has nothing to do with competitiveness so please take that ignorant thought out of this discussion. The number of good teams or the number of teams that cold challenge the top 2 is relevent.

The mid atlantic region had 2 teams that were far superior than the rest. They should not have had to run hard and should have done fine at ncaa's. Arkansas had 2 guys that did not have to run hard at regionals and they performed well at ncaa's. The rest of arkansas was young (for the most part) and had to work hard at regionals and they sucked at ncaa's. Texas had to go all out at regionals and it showed. Lamar and Texas AM are better than the weak as hell 3-4 at the mid atlantic.

uuutttyy wrote:

The truth hurts - your point about the south central and the mid atlantic seems a bit off. First of all, the number of teams in a region has nothing to do with competitiveness so please take that ignorant thought out of this discussion.

One team in a region or two, there is no competitiveness at all. Thus, you point is false on its face. Second, adding more teams in general can not make a region less competitive because at worst they will just finish behind. However, they may have some top runner that will go into the scoring mix and potentially altering the results and hence the competitiveness of some team. Third, maybe that team is just good enough to have a chance for the second or third spots, especially if an otherwise superior team wants to try to rest some of its top six (either by running more easily or not running them). This alters the strategy and makes it a little harder to take the approach that helps in the next round.

Do not be so harsh in your comments when you have flaws in your own.