Could the winning team at D3 XC Nationals beat the last place team at D1

A better question is could Villanova women win Mens D3 nationals? I say YES.

That is funny. But no the Villanova women's team could not win D3 men's XC.

Illinois beat MSU at conference, and North Central beat Illinois during the season. So, there is a possibility.

I have a ton of respect for NCC, but it's highly unlikely they're beating MSU. They were awful at Big Ten's, but D1 is just an entirely different ballgame. NCC would probably be top 8-10 at the Midwest Regional, but expecting anything beyond that is probably unrealistic. With the limited resources it has NCC does incredible things, but it's really comparing apples to oranges.

NCC could have been top 25 in d1... same as Cortland last year and NYU the year before, and so on and so forth. DIII has been improving more and more and those teams at D1 that tank would have a little more to prove if they had a few dIII teams busting up on them. I'm sure the pampered athletes wouldn't give up as easily if the so called baby teams were in the race.

ipod wrote:

NCC could have been top 25 in d1... same as Cortland last year and NYU the year before, and so on and so forth. DIII has been improving more and more and those teams at D1 that tank would have a little more to prove if they had a few dIII teams busting up on them. I'm sure the pampered athletes wouldn't give up as easily if the so called baby teams were in the race.

Listen to this - "DIII could be an afterthought at the national level, and this is a huge improvement"

I was a DIII athlete, and I chose that path for a reason - running was not going to be my life. I was pretty good, but not good enough to compete at D1 level, and not interested in being that focused to the exclusion of everything else one can get out of college/university.

DI programs actively seek the most talented, motivated athletes they can. DIII has to take what walks in the door. Al Carius does an AMAZING job given those circumstances. +300 DIII All-Ams? Nice.

Adams State could wipe out all of you.

ipod wrote:

NCC could have been top 25 in d1... same as Cortland last year and NYU the year before, and so on and so forth. DIII has been improving more and more and those teams at D1 that tank would have a little more to prove if they had a few dIII teams busting up on them. I'm sure the pampered athletes wouldn't give up as easily if the so called baby teams were in the race.

There's a difference between saying that they could beat teams at the Div I national meet and saying that they're better. There are always a few teams that just blow up at nationals, but if they raced several times over the course of a season, I'd take any top-31 D I team over North Central (or whatever the DIII champ is in a given year).

Note: I ran Div III and have a ton of respect for North Central, it is without a doubt one of the great NCAA programs, regardless of division.

against Michigan State I would take North Central. They are champions(all be it in DIII). To be champion you have some pride. I think they would win based on pride. Michigan State would have all the pressure to win and would be humiliated much like Illinois was by North Central.

So this isn't a great analysis considering there are a lot of inconsistencies (differences in cources run, distance conversions, ect.)but it puts some numbers to the debate.

If you compare three meets: pre-nats (for for DIII i used the meet NCC ran on oct. 17th-uw Oshkosh), regions and nats (using the mcmillan conversion of 10k to 8k times), Michigan state's top five averaged a 25:08 8k. NCC's top five averaged 24:54 for 8k, so it's pretty darn close any way you look at it.

This is exactly right. NCC doesn't have to be a better team to beat some top 30 D1 teams, they just have to run better on the given day. No, I don't think NCC is a top 25 DI team, but they could place top 25 at D1 nationals since a few teams always tank.

I thought they always formed the Divisions based on the success of their XC teams.

Many of the North Central teams over the years would have been even better over 10k than 8k. They have had some huge mileage guys in the past. I don't know that much about this year's NCC team and the mileage they run, but I know if d-3 raced 10k at nationals that there were some years where NCC's margin of victory would have been even bigger and/or they might even have had an additional title or two, considering how many times they finished a close 2nd. All the more reason it would be fun to see them go head to head against d-1 schools over 10k at d-1 nationals.

You may be on to something. Your post struck me as funny because one time (quite a few years ago when I was in college) I asked my college coach why Div. I and Div. II race 10K in the national meet but Div. III only races 8K. He said the coaches would never vote in favor of changing to 10K. I asked why. He said because if it were 10K North Central would win EVERY year instead of every other year (on average)! I got the feeling he was only half-joking.

I remember last year Cortland lost to Villanova's men team by 1 point at Penn State. NOva was ranked 23rd or so in the nation at that point. I think that if you put the best DIII team in the race at DI, they would probably come close to last in the DI race. But if the race was an 8k the best team in DIII would give some of those teams at the bottom a run for their money.

former Div. III guy wrote:

You may be on to something. Your post struck me as funny because one time (quite a few years ago when I was in college) I asked my college coach why Div. I and Div. II race 10K in the national meet but Div. III only races 8K. He said the coaches would never vote in favor of changing to 10K. I asked why. He said because if it were 10K North Central would win EVERY year instead of every other year (on average)! I got the feeling he was only half-joking.

bullshit. we're not afraid of 10k and i wish we'd make the change.

I run for a community college and the year before I joined we beat Central Michigan University at the MSU invitational.

DII and DIII runners are so extremely gay. I doubt the DIII winners could beat any of our bottom feeders. Their might be a few DII programs that could hang but the overwhelming majority of DII and DIII runners blow.

That's because it was the beginning of the year and our top 6 didn't run.