Overly provocative title, but what happened out there? Didn't exactly live up to the mid-season talk. (and to be fair performances as well)
A combination of poor peaking, lack of depth, and bad luck? For all the talent that comes in it seems like the program struggles in getting kids to jump from great prep-runners to All-American caliber collegiates. Perhaps a great place to go run solid times and get an education, but not the sort of place to excel unless you're already a Cabral type talent. Interested to hear thoughts as the program definitely has its fan-boys and haters on this site.
Ivy League Hype Machine Fails Again (re: Princeton)
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No commentary on Princeton, but speaking on the Ivy League at large, Two Words: Abbey D'Agostino
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Speaking of the Ivy League schools, where was Cornell?
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Looks like something was up with Leung. He hasn't done well the past 2 meets and should've been their number 2 guy, not 5.
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1. I would bet Princeton is inside the top 5 as far as high school 9-minute 2-milers.
2. Too many all-out races throughtout the season. Their Flotrack WOW was way more impressive than their race today -
Leung has been sick the past 3 weeks (since HEPS). However, even if he finishes in about 30th for team points, they still only finish 13th. They looked much better at Notre Dame earlier this year. Don't know what happened to them throughout the season.
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1 Big Question
Why didn't Arroyo Yamin run? The guy ran 14:11 as a frosh last year and beat Cornell's 10k All-American in the 10k.
He had been coming on all year after a slow start. He was their 6th man at Heps (15th). He was their 4th man at Regionals.
If he wasn't hurt, I think they have some major explaining to do. If I'm him, I get the transfer papers out if there isn't an injury as it looks like they just bowed down at the altar to let the top two freshmen run in Pons (who didn't run for a month and didn't run Heps) and Owens (who wasn't in their top 7 at Heps) just because they ran like 8:50 in HS.
I know the whole point of going to Princeton and Harvard (what place were they at NCAAs again this year) is all about being able to brag about your pedigree and what you did in the past but I didn't realize that applied to cross country. -
So how many all-out 8k or 10k races CAN you run in a season? Seems like the top teams always hold back early on in the year. Back in the heyday of Wisconsin or Arkansas, sometimes those teams would bench some of their guys even for regionals. Do runners really have a finite number of "hammering-on-all-cylinders" races in a season?
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Listen - Princeton runners start with an incredible skill set. They should be a top five team but the runners run the show. They will always do well becasuse they are a top five team competing in the Ivy League and they judge themselves on a Heps scale. None of the guys except a few really improve. Harvard is a mess and supposedly a revolt is a brewing. Basically their entire team has either quit or is hurt with many talking about transferring out. Columbia seems to be rolling right now - the guys improve significantly there and the seem to possess the most heart. They kicked the hell of a way better Princeton team for 7.5k at Heps - Princeton entry level of ability just a little too strong to overcome through coaching alone. The new Brown coach seems to be doing a very good job coaching but they lose everyone to graduation this year and are done as they don't seem to be replacing anyone. Penn sucks. Dartmouth is solid.Guys were hot last year but all has seemed to fizzle out. Yale sucks. Cornell has decent guys and a pretty good tradition of success on the track but that junior class has yet to really live up to their hype.
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Yamin didnt run becuase he was thier 8th man
Cabral,Lueng, Pons, Maag, Udland, and Bendtsen have beaten Yamin mostly all season so the 7th man came down to Owens and Yamin and Owens beat Yamin at regionals.
Princeton had a tough break with their 2-4 runners not performing well at Nationals
2 Leung (Sick)
3 Pons (Hurt)
4 Stilin (Anemic so ended up winning IC4As)
Obviously coulda, shoulda, woulda, but they will be back every team has its ups and downs, they just happen to have their down when it counted most.
Look for their indoor DMR to bring redemption
they have 3 4 flat guys
1 3:44 guy
1 1:48 low guy -
jk1 wrote:
Harvard is a mess and supposedly a revolt is a brewing. Basically their entire team has either quit or is hurt with many talking about transferring out.
Concur and confirm. What a shame. -
Columbia rolled right to a huge stinker at NCAA's. Was the Heps meet just too intense this year given the crazy conditions? Cabral and Lowry were soundly beaten at Heps by Shaw and Merber, but had much better finishes at NCAA's. Differing priorities?
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The women did have two in the Top 5, and had a member of the winning team (Claire Richardson is an ex-Heps athlete).
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Columbia also had the top female freshman in the race - Waverly Neer was 40th and an All-American.
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A lot of teams think they have depth and interchangeable parts, which is what coach Dolan thought after Heps, but that assumption is irrelevant at nationals. Swapping out a 30:30 Terre Haute guy for a 31 minute performance can cost a team 50-60 points, whereas at Heps or regionals that might not make a critical difference.
Assuming they have a couple of elite runners, a team that wants to run well at nationals needs to get its journeymen scorers in at 30:40 or better, because after that the points added to the team score spikes and over the next 30 seconds it becomes a total clusterf$ck. These runners are all pretty much in the same tier, but the question is who is having their best race of the season.
Princeton's season could be as "Stanfordesque", where there was enough depth to cover some illness and injury problems mid-season. But those problems left a team that was going to be an also-ran at the NCAA level, because the guys covering are going to be on the wrong side of that 30:40 tipping point (or thereabouts), even if they are OK regional and conference runners.
My guess is they knew they were done as a top ten team right after Heps, considering how close it was with Columbia. -
Yeah, guys should transfer out of Harvard to somewhere like Arkansas or OK State because they are not running well.
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easy reason wrote:
Yamin didnt run becuase he was thier 8th man
Cabral,Lueng, Pons, Maag, Udland, and Bendtsen have beaten Yamin mostly all season so the 7th man came down to Owens and Yamin and Owens beat Yamin at regionals.
Princeton had a tough break with their 2-4 runners not performing well at Nationals
2 Leung (Sick)
3 Pons (Hurt)
4 Stilin (Anemic so ended up winning IC4As)
Your statement is inaccurate. Pons hadn't beaten Arroyo Yamin 'mostly all season.' The facts reveal that Pons had beaten him since Sept 30th (Paul Short).
After Paul Short, Pons didn't run Wisco or Heps. Then at regionals, he runs and gets spanked by Arroyo Yamin.
The facts are Pons shouldn't have run NCAAs. -
Im sure Pons beat Yamin in WORKOUTS hence the reason he was given a bye for his regional performance.
Like I said all races leading up to regionals that Pons ran he beat Yamin.
The last spot was between Yamin and Owens, Owens was faster at regionals thus he got to race over Yamin.
plain and simple. -
doh etosh wrote:
Yeah, guys should transfer out of Harvard to somewhere like Arkansas or OK State because they are not running well.
Not sure I understand you. Did someone say anyone was transferring to those programs? Why would those be the only options? Or are there no other programs for a smart runner who likes to run to even consider except Harvard? Harvard is so great that a runner should abandon their sport just to get the Harvard name on their degree? -
veritas wrote:
Not sure I understand you. Did someone say anyone was transferring to those programs? Why would those be the only options? Or are there no other programs for a smart runner who likes to run to even consider except Harvard? Harvard is so great that a runner should abandon their sport just to get the Harvard name on their degree?
A Harvard degree is worth much more than at 14:30 5k is.
Unless the guys were transferring to Yale, Princeton, MIT or CalTech - it would be in their interest to stay at Harvard.
