West: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 17, T23 (Girma comes through in the clutch).
East: 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, T23
Average time:
West: 28:59.6
East: 30:01.2
And the East got two guys into the 800 final only because the 2nd heat was all East guys.
This is a bad system, assuming the goal is to identify and reward the best runners in the country.
And it's even worse for the Women. How is this even possible?
West: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 15, 18
East: 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24
It is a terrible system.
The East region represents yet one more time.
Given that all eight guys in the second heat of the 800 were from the East, the worst they could go was 7th and 8th in the final and they accomplished that in style. One guy was never in the race (go figure) and the other thought it was a 700. They did finish, though. Kudos.
Wow, what a stunningly good result for the East region in the 5000. They had a dude finish 2nd, what an accomplishment. The West took all of the other spots in the top 10, but no need to think about that. The regional system is working perfectly: get a bunch of stiffs from the East into the NCAA's and then let them fight it out for the valuable 13-24 slots.
West: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 20
East: 2, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24
Check out the 100 meter finals for men and women. The East dominates that event. Check out the qualifiers for the 200 final as well.
MoneyXC wrote:
Check out the 100 meter finals for men and women. The East dominates that event. Check out the qualifiers for the 200 final as well.
Yes, the East takes a large one up the pipe in the sprints. I feel bad about that.
It's just more evidence that the regional system is unfair. Really, really unfair.
Odd that you don't cite the women's 400, where East went 1-2-6-7-8 or the men's 400, 1-4-6, or women's int hurdles 1-3-4-8, or men's 100, where the East went 1-2-3-4-5-6-8 or men's hammer, where the East went 1-2-6 or women's steeple where East went 2-3-4-5-7.
Basically, you're full of crap because you only cite the results that support your myopic viewpoint.
Let's just say this: any athlete who cannot make it into the top 12 of his/her region has no claim as to being the best or near the best. What you are arguing about are the spots between 13 and 24, which, while not unimportant, are not nearly as one sided as you present.
You bring up the men's 800 repeatedly, yet, why not the women's, where the East went 2-3-6-7-8? The obvious answer is that you are not objective nor fair minded.
Don't bother answering my post, as you demonstrate closed mind and it is obvious that you are not interested in balanced analysis.
Distance bro
Not odd at all since he said 10k you dork. Oh god you're an absolute muppet.
He cited a lot more than the 10k in the body of several posts.
Isn't the point that regionals don't work. You evidence points that out as well.
Skeptic of it All wrote:
Isn't the point that regionals don't work. You evidence points that out as well.
I understand the criticism that talent can pool in certain events in either region, but the balancing factor is that each region brings in 12 athletes. In that way, no one who is in the top 12 is eliminated because his/her region is extra good. But, remembering that this is the national championships, we are mostly focused on the top 8 or so in each event. This system clearly allows the top 8 passage into the meet. If someone cannot be top 12 in a region, they may be better than 8 or 10 in the other region, but they surely aren't better than at least 12 in their own region, so it does not affect the point scorers or the serious contenders for points.
In the distance events, All American goes way past 12 though. I know a runner who knew he was guaranteed All American just by finishing the 5k two years in a row. So All Americans are probably being left at home.
lost in Boston wrote:
I understand the criticism that talent can pool in certain events in either region, but the balancing factor is that each region brings in 12 athletes. In that way, no one who is in the top 12 is eliminated because his/her region is extra good. But, remembering that this is the national championships, we are mostly focused on the top 8 or so in each event. This system clearly allows the top 8 passage into the meet. If someone cannot be top 12 in a region, they may be better than 8 or 10 in the other region, but they surely aren't better than at least 12 in their own region, so it does not affect the point scorers or the serious contenders for points.
It's not possible for me to disagree with this more strongly.
Getting to the NCAA finals is a huge deal for an athlete. A really huge deal. It's also a big deal for the family, teammates and friends. It's also a big deal for the coaches, past and present. It's a huge, huge, huge deal. It doesn't get simpler than that.
This "we only care about the point scorers or the serious contenders" stuff is absurd. We want the best 24 there to compete and that is not happening with the regional system. At least I want that. Clearly, you don't. An arbitrary line drawn not really East/West is the answer? Looks to me like Wisconsin and Illinois should be in the East and Louisiana and maybe Mississippi should be in the West. Why aren't they? Why not just draw a line from Key West through Seattle? Why not just make it North/South? After all, if you can't finish in the top 12 in your region, you just simply don't belong there.
Lets look at the points so far. I'm a distance guy, so if you want to bring in the sprints, field events and multi's have at it.
Men (10000, 800, 5000):
West: 74
East: 12
Women (10000, 800, Steeple):
West: 62
East: 24
I will acknowledge yet one more time that the regional system screws the East in the sprints and it also may screw the East in the Hammer, I'll get right on the Hammer research.
Also (from your earlier post), Illinois is in the West region. Two NCAA champions in the sprints from a single West region school, wow, would've thunk that?
My sincere apologies to all. It's actually:
Men (10000, 800, 5000):
West: 75
East: 12
Women (10000, 800, Steeple):
West: 62
East: 25
The problem is that there is no perfect system to the problem.
Descending order lists aren't fair because of the disparity of conditions under which athletes from different parts of the country must compete in by virtue of climate. Just look at the heat waves that have dominated the mid west and far east in contrast to the cool conditions on the west coast. It is not an exaggeration to say some athletes seldom if ever get to compete in the type of near perfect conditions that California offers distance runners. Are you content to let weather decide who gets to go to nationals? Are you prepared to doubt the influence of climatic conditions on distance race times?
If you go to smaller regions, the weakness of a divisional process is exacerbated - the more regions, the more danger that better athletes get left home because their region is more competitive than another region.
With the two region system, at least the top 12 get to go from each half. I wouldn't see anything wrong with looking at results and moving a few key schools to another region if it would appear to put things in better balance. Whether others would opt for that, I don't know. I know this, though, after coaching Division I teams for more than 30 years this is a helluva lot better than any of the prior set-ups. Perfect? No. It could use some fine tuning to make it better, but if it sits as it is - and I know you disagree - I think it is fairer than either indoors or xcountry and does a better job of providing more athletes with a real chance of advancing to the NCAAs by going head to head against competitors.
lost in Boston wrote:
The problem is that there is no perfect system to the problem.
Descending order lists aren't fair because of the disparity of conditions under which athletes from different parts of the country must compete in by virtue of climate. Just look at the heat waves that have dominated the mid west and far east in contrast to the cool conditions on the west coast. It is not an exaggeration to say some athletes seldom if ever get to compete in the type of near perfect conditions that California offers distance runners. Are you content to let weather decide who gets to go to nationals? Are you prepared to doubt the influence of climatic conditions on distance race times?
If you go to smaller regions, the weakness of a divisional process is exacerbated - the more regions, the more danger that better athletes get left home because their region is more competitive than another region.
With the two region system, at least the top 12 get to go from each half. I wouldn't see anything wrong with looking at results and moving a few key schools to another region if it would appear to put things in better balance. Whether others would opt for that, I don't know. I know this, though, after coaching Division I teams for more than 30 years this is a helluva lot better than any of the prior set-ups. Perfect? No. It could use some fine tuning to make it better, but if it sits as it is - and I know you disagree - I think it is fairer than either indoors or xcountry and does a better job of providing more athletes with a real chance of advancing to the NCAAs by going head to head against competitors.
That post is irritating mostly because there isn't all that much to disagree with.
The weather, yeah, but isn't that really a proxy for smaller East region schools not having the money in the budget to go to Mt. Sac or Stanford? Are you a D1 school or not? Make the choice. Indoors, same thing, I don't have much sympathy. If you've got any program at all, then find a way to get to Fayetteville, South Bend, Ames or Seattle. There are some quality meets on the East coast as well, if there is no travel budget.
I feel that the quality of the regional competition outdoors for the men in the distance and sprint events is badly out of whack. Bad and unfair. Throwing the Wisconsin schools East and the Louisiana schools West, which should have been done from the beginning, addresses it to a limited extent.
I'd like to know the decision making/politics on why Arkansas went West and Louisiana went East. WTF? It doesn't make any sense.
As someone who was part of the process of determining the NCAA set-up there is one simple fact that you all should know. This is the system that the NCAA Cabinet wanted. It was never the best system, but one that was crammed down the coaches throats due to bad politics. I won't go into that. BUT, when we take a look at the actual differences in the "regionals" prior to the NCAA meet they are strikingly similar. At the end of the regular season (the 48th best performance) here is just a snippet of some similarities.
WEST vs EAST (the actual 48th best performance from regular season)
W100: 10.62 vs 10.62
W200: 23.80 vs 23.80
W1500: 4:23.38 vs 4:21.88
W5000: 16:31.41 vs 16:30.42
W4x100: 45.31 vs 45.28
WHJ: 5' 8 1/2" vs 5' 8 3/4"
M100: 10.47 vs 10.43
M400: 47.04 vs 47.06
M800: 1:49.66 vs 1:49.89
M1500: 3:45.94 vs 3:45.34
M5000: 14:03.88 vs 14:03.53
M400H: 52.15 vs 52.57
MLJ: 24' 4 1/2" vs 24' 3 3/4"
MHJ: 6' 11" vs 6' 10 3/4"
What this shows is that during the regular season, after thousands and thousands of performances the two region are actually very similar in the final product. What appears to change is the actual region competition, which then leads to the actual NCAA competition.
There are only a few events where one could see a significant statistical difference between regions, the Combined Events (west much better), the women's PV (west much better) and the women 1500 (east much better).
Unfortunately, all this data is nice but when the athletes get to the NCAA meet much changes.
No matter what in any qualifying system balance is what is the goal. Based on the regular season actual performances the two regions are well balanced. Also, if we look back at 2010 and 2011 it looks the same. So while I don't like this present system, if we simply ask does it balance out the regular season so that the same type of athletes are going to the regional championship (first-round competition) then the answer is yes.
Steeple and 1500 dominated by the East.