Defending my statement about Wisco needing to win, this is basically a preview of nationals even though Ok. St. won’t be there. This is NCAA Pre-Nats instead of it being called the Wisco Adidas XC Invite. Compared to Wisco hosting this meet in the past, arguably this is the most stacked race ever for a regular season meet. I know Wisco only cares about 3 titles (B-10s, Regional even though I feel like they’re just looking to qualify and not care too much about the Regional title race with Indiana but who knows, and most importantly NATIONALS), but this meet being as big of a meet as possible and arguably being the most competitive regular season race ever, if I were the boys at Wisco I would:
-run everyone just to see how they stack up against what will be their competition at nationals and learn from any mistakes that might be made in order to be well prepared for the big dance.
-when it comes to resting or sitting out a guy or two, do so at Regional (I figure they’ll at least want to beat out Indiana for the B-10 title and only look to qualify for nationals at Regional since both Wisco and Indiana without a doubt will crush the field unless one or both teams choke). No other team is going to challenge Wisco and Indiana at Regional for the auto spots.
Here are my predictions: I strongly believe Wisco needs to put their full squad in this race. I know they haven’t in the past, but this meet is way too big to pass up by putting in some “B” runners. Wisco for the win if they put in their full squad; if not then either Stanford or IU (IU wins only if Bayer runs). Too hard to tell individually who’ll win, so my guess is Chris Derrick.