Who and how does the NCAA deside what teams get in as At-Large selections for the NCAA National Meet? I hear it is pretty complicated. I am new to this, and wanting to know. Is there any website that I can visit to find out?
Who and how does the NCAA deside what teams get in as At-Large selections for the NCAA National Meet? I hear it is pretty complicated. I am new to this, and wanting to know. Is there any website that I can visit to find out?
I also wanted to know about the at-large selection process. According to Mike Scott, Vice Chair/Secretary, USATF Cross Country Council...
"The rules are buried on both ncaa.org and ncaachampionships.com; with some digging you can find them.
(Somebody posted a link in this forum, but I can't remember where.)
Basically, there are 13 "rounds" of comparing the nine "bubble" teams. In the 1st round, the bubble teams are the nine 3rd place finishers.
The criteria are:
(1) # wins over teams "already in the meet" (1st round, these are the 18 auto qualifiers; 2nd round is the 18 autos, plus the 1st at large...etc). Multiple wins over the same team count (eg, UNC can count wins over Florida State at Great American, Pre-NCAAs, and ACCs as three seperate wins -- this is why teams in _some_ conferences have a real advantage).
(2) head-to-head records w/ teams tied on 1st criteria
(3) records against common opponents (Duke beat Wisconsin @ Stanford, Wisconsin beat ND @ ND, so if Duke and ND end up in seperate races at Pre-NCAAs, and are tied on (1) & (2), then Duke gets the nod).
(4) Individual contenders (truthfully, I've never seen this one used).
Also...last year, they implemented the "anti-blocking" rule...in the past, if a team that had run lousy all season (sometimes this happens by a team just not racing a "smart" schedule that gives them opportunities to "get points") suddenly puts a race together at regionals and gets third...it can "block" teams that finish 4th, 5th,
6th, etc that have plenty of points.
In order to eliminate the "blocking" problem, you not only examine the # of points that a bubble team has, but also the # of points that the team immediately behind it in the same region has. Last year, the fourth-place team in the NE "pushed" Brown into the meet...and ended up with EIGHT schools from the NE getting in the meet. Now...yet another change for this year: bubble schools do NOT get points for wins over a
"blocker team" that was "pushed" into the meet by a team behind it."
Complicated? YES."