Big Ten Results

LOL, welcome to the Big 10 Nebraska. Can't hang with us in XC huh?

Based on how they did versus Craig Lutz, Wisco is the better theam than Ok State right now. It would go

OK St

Ok St

Wisco

Wisco

Wisco

Wisco

Wisco

Ok St

Ok St

Ok St

I was at the meet today. Mead made a huge move early on and I'm not sure why. I saw the runners a little after the first mile mark and the lead pack was the Wisco top 5, the IU top 3, and Mead. Next time I saw Mead, a little after the 2-mile mark, he had created about a 25-meter gap. This means he made a move sometime before the 2-mile mark, which sees way too early.

Anyways, the pack rolled him back in sometime around the 3-mile mark (I think), and by this point only 1 of the 3 IU runners was still up there, another was battling to stay up there, and 1 was a ways back but still ahead of everyone else. With half a mile to go there was no question Ahmed would win, the only question was could Wisco do the unthinkable and drop a perfect score at a major conference meet? But Mead hung in there do break up the top 5, and IU's 2nd and 3rd runners paid the price for sticking with the lead pack so long as 2 Michigan runners had passed them up.

I just wonder if Mead would've won had he not consumed all that energy early on to create such a big gap only to be caught with 2 miles still to go. All credit to Ahmed and Wisco though.

The women's race was not that exciting individually,as the top 15 or so were very spread out, though watching in-person it was hard to figure out which of the top 4 contenders would win the team race until very close to the end, so that made it a little more interesting.

Melbs wrote:

"without Girma"...do we know anything about his status?

OK State's top 3 have the potential to be 20 places in front of Wisconsin's pack, so I don't think we can count them out by any means!

20 Places ahead? Wisco's top 5 are all top 30 guys, what are you smoking? They could easily all pack in between 10 and 25.

Can someone explain why michigan won the tiebreaker over minnesota? I thought you looked at 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, etc. and the team that wins more of those matchups wins. But minnesota should have won if that is the tiebreaker.

I would have to concur with the 'what are you smoking comment. Lutz was barely hanging on to the pack of five from Wisconsin that were running together. Put Lutz chasing Collins and Connor and that makes Wisconsin's 2/3 a bit ahead of OSU's 1/2 and the rest of the OSU guys could not keep up despite having to race hard to beat Oklahoma. Mead succeeded in beating Wisconsin's 4/5 guys but then he was picked to run away with the win.

r-dawg wrote:

Can someone explain why michigan won the tiebreaker over minnesota? I thought you looked at 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, etc. and the team that wins more of those matchups wins. But minnesota should have won if that is the tiebreaker.

Michigan and Minnesota tied for third. From the Participant Manual:

Ties

1. Ties in team and individual competition at the Conference championship shall not be broken.

2. Duplicate awards will be ordered and sent to additional institutions.

r-dawg wrote:

Can someone explain why michigan won the tiebreaker over minnesota? I thought you looked at 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, etc. and the team that wins more of those matchups wins. But minnesota should have won if that is the tiebreaker.

According to the PA announcer at the meet, the Big Ten does not use tiebreakers and so the the two teams technically tied for 3rd. If he's right (and I think he probably is) then the Illinois Athletic Dept. made a mistake when they listed it as...

3. Michigan

4. Minnesota

I'm guessing Michigan got listed first because they went with alphabetical order, but nevertheless it should read:

3. Michigan

3. Minnesota

Someone was either inattentive or doesn't know anything about XC.

Gibby looks to be bringing the program along a bit. I was surprised at that finish.

As people above have posted, it should be a tie.http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/TF12.pdf

Team Scoring

ARTICLE 3.a. Only the first seven runners on any one team may be used

in scoring places. An order for team-finish placing is established by

removing all runners behind the top seven finishers on each team. Those

teams not finishing at least five runners likewise shall not be included in

the order of team finish.

b. The score shall be determined by totaling the points of the first five

runners of each team to finish. The team scoring the lower number of

points shall be the winner.

c. Although the sixth and seventh runners of a team to finish do not score

points toward their team’s total, their places, if better than those of any

of the first five of an opposing team, serve to increase the team score of

the opponents.

d. Ties in team scoring shall not be broken, except for advancement to the

championships finals.

impressive result for the badgers, 18 second split, all strong times, and only one breakdown at 10k at nationals away from losing by a lot, but then with Mecheso, Ok St needs a couple strong performances from 4 5 to get the win again. GF and Lowe look very strong and may total around 10 pts between them. Farrell has a great shot at top 12. 22 pts there. Now they're looking at 60s at best for a score, assuming that none of their other guys can go under 20th (of course, the team scores exclude individuals like Lalang), but Smith seems confident and GF talked about how strong their depth has been in workouts in comparison to previous years. Wisconsin looks like it can pack in all five guys within thirty to forty seconds at nationals and that would probably put them in the high 50s to low 60s.

jjjjjjjjjj wrote:

impressive result for the badgers, 18 second split, all strong times, and only one breakdown at 10k at nationals away from losing by a lot, but then with Mecheso, Ok St needs a couple strong performances from 4 5 to get the win again. GF and Lowe look very strong and may total around 10 pts between them. Farrell has a great shot at top 12. 22 pts there. Now they're looking at 60s at best for a score, assuming that none of their other guys can go under 20th (of course, the team scores exclude individuals like Lalang), but Smith seems confident and GF talked about how strong their depth has been in workouts in comparison to previous years. Wisconsin looks like it can pack in all five guys within thirty to forty seconds at nationals and that would probably put them in the high 50s to low 60s.

I'm having a real hard time seeing Wisco in the high 50s to low 60s. Let's average this range and say 60 points. For this their top five need to average 12th place. Seems a bit optimistic to me. I'm going to guess 75.

That said, I think Wisco is going to beat OK State handily. Farrell sure didn't look like a top 12 guy out there at Big 12s. GF and CL didn't put a whole lot of ground on a very good (but not OMG spectacular) freshman and the OK State folks looked to be working pretty hard. Girma is out. And folks like Stubs and Kipchirchir aren't exactly lighting it up. I'd guess CL + GF = 14. TF = 20. Kipchirchir at 32 and Stubs at 40 give OK State 106 - possibly closer to 3rd place than 1st.

Still doesn't have the respect of the alums after talking trash about Warhurst at NCAA's last year.

superman wrote:

Gibby looks to be bringing the program along a bit. I was surprised at that finish.

I will say, I was pleasantly surprised by the Wisconsin women. If Sisson doesn't transfer, they have another in the top five and would be looking at runner-up in the conference.

O I wasn't aware that that happened. Hey if he can produce then I don't know if the alumni will matter.

midwesta wrote:

I will say, I was pleasantly surprised by the Wisconsin women. If Sisson doesn't transfer, they have another in the top five and would be looking at runner-up in the conference.

I thought she already transferred.

rcc wrote:

this is ridiculous; how long does it take to some OFFICIAL results posted?!

Dude, they haven't even figured out there are now 12 teams in the league, not 10, and you expect them to tabulate results of a couple hundred runners in a matter of minutes?

Melbs wrote:

"without Girma"...do we know anything about his status?

OK State's top 3 have the potential to be 20 places in front of Wisconsin's pack, so I don't think we can count them out by any means!

Pretty unlikely IMO. OSU would have to score negative points for this to happen.