BIG EAST Meet

If you havent been paying attention its probably best you not go cause you dont care obviously. Nope no studs running, a down year in the BE this year go to Big 10! I predict some lame sprint school to win, UCONN or Louisville.

obviously neither of you have been paying attention because the meet is in akron this year, not new york

jeremy rae. nuff said

the big ten has track?

thanks thats why I post, that solves that. Too bad they moved it.

Krunksta wrote:

If you havent been paying attention its probably best you not go cause you dont care obviously. Nope no studs running, a down year in the BE this year go to Big 10! I predict some lame sprint school to win, UCONN or Louisville.

Ummm, in case you forgot the XC National Camps will be there. In particular the individual champion. Nuff said.

It is not a good year to check it out since Big East is at Akron this year.

Go Rutgers.

Well, I mean succeed in the sprints and field events. Distance running and Rutgers don't go well together, unless their xcross team is beating up on Rider and other asort D3 schools.

Why would they have it in Akron? They lose thier lease at the Armory? That makes no sense having it there. I know it s a 300m track but no Big East school is really close to it.

Akron is in fact closer to several of the Big East schools than NYC is. Cincinnati, Louisville, West Virginia, Depaul, Marquette, Notre Dame and for South Florida they are a flight to either so it doesnt particularly matter either way for them. All of the other schools are significantly closer to Akron than NYC though. Akron is pretty centrally located if you take into account the entire conference geography.

Also, the meet will return to the Armory next year I believe. The meet was in Akron several years ago as well. The Big East agreed at some point to make an effort to have the meet a little more centrally located some seasons. The Big East as a conference is almost completely devoid of schools with the facilities capable of hosting the meet. In fact, I dont believe that any of them have a legitimate, first rate indoor facility, which is puzzling given the climate that all of the schools face in the winter with the exception of USF.

As for the meet. On the womens side WVU, Nova, Louisville and G-Town are all in the Top 25. The mens side of the BE is down this year, no teams currently ranked. But as is tradition the mid-distance races will be strong as usual on both sides. There are returning all-americans scattered throughout many of the events. So as a whole the conference may be slightly down from previous years but there is still a lot of talent in the conference this season and the meet by no means would be a waste of time to check out.

They are putting indoors at akron so all three events won't be on the east coast in a given year (xc in syracuse and outdoor at nova this year). last year xc an outdoor were more central (wisconsin and cincinnati) so they moved indoor from akron to NY to keep the balance. they armory is sweet, they definitely should keep having it there.

In regards to teams, lame sprint schools haven't bee winning the conference if you look at the past years. For example last year indoors the nova girls won with almost all of their points out of the distance events (sheila reid ran 5 races in two days).

ND on the guys side has won three in a row (outdoor indoor outdoor) with a balanced approach, and if they win outdoors this year their senior class will have won 4 outdoors in a row. plus they have jeremy rae and he's really hot

East Coast wrote:

The Big East as a conference is almost completely devoid of schools with the facilities capable of hosting the meet. In fact, I dont believe that any of them have a legitimate, first rate indoor facility, which is puzzling given the climate that all of the schools face in the winter with the exception of USF.

You mean, Notre Dame doesn't have a first rate facility? They hold some big qualifiers there, but I'm guessing the lack of stands prohibits the championship.

Do they still have the track at the Carrier Dome?

I wouldn't call it first rate, compared to the Armory or Tyson Center or UW, but was still a decent place to run.

Also, most of the Big East schools are small, catholic, private schools. Or at least private schools. Most don't have large budgets, especially large athletic budgets - other than basketball. Syracuse, Louisville, and West Virginia and Notre Dame are the exceptions. Rutgers and UConn are tying to get there, same with USF, but they're still playing in the minor leagues.

Seton Hall has an indoor track (200m, flat), but no real stands to host a meet.

Cincinnati also has an indoor track - old Armory Fieldhouse, but I'm not sure that the configurations are, or whether it could reasonable host a meet.

Georgetown, Providence, St. Johns are all small catholic schools in a big city with limited resources to construct a facility on their own. Ditto Marquette and DePaul. Villanova has it a bit better, out in the suburbs, but their alumni are lazy. For all the tradition they purport, they don't step up, and expect the program to be champions every year.

The Big East is a basketball conference. And basketball, while lucrative, doesn't attract the kind of all-sport spending that football does. A basketball team needs a much smaller weight room than a football team does. Etc.

Im not sure if you have been to ND's facility or not but there isnt a single seat in the place. It is a very nice facility, I was not implying at all that it wasn't. I competed in meets at ND about 10 years ago and thought it was a great building compared to many. And very fast times are run on the track there every year. But for a major conference meet, hosting at a place with no seating just doesn't work well or make sense. ND has a great facility to train in and host the meets that they currently host but for the BE im not so sure.

And I am well aware that many of the schools are small in size but some of them have elite programs, i.e. Nova. They would be within reason to build a nice indoor track facility given the success they have had. Obviously it all comes back to money, but with several large public institutions in the conference, all of those that you listed above, you would think that one of them would have a top notch building. Then perhaps the meet could rotate back and forth between the Armory and what ever school that would be.

Just my thoughts.

I missed your comment about the lack of stands at ND when I read it the first time. You would be correct in the assumption that it is probably the factor that keeps them from consideration.

as for akron how is the seating? Is it like the Armory with the track below the fans or is it more like Reggie Lewis in Boston where the fans are more eye level with the track?

Tons of seating at Akron from track level up just about the length of the track. They also have a decent video board on the back straight wall. It's a great place to watch a meet.

thanks for the info..we are making the drive out 6 hours or so and hope the weather is clear with no storms heading around our travel distance. should be fun...

Below is a link to a picture of the facility. There is seating along that entire left side that is just barely visible in the picture. It goes up about 15 rows and is about 80-90m in length . There are also portable bleachers in some of the corners at times.

http://montecalvoelectric.com/gallery/007.jpg

jimmy johns wrote:

jeremy rae. nuff said

Is Rae running the mile? If he is, he will lose to Nova's Matt Gibney.