New D3 indoor conversions are BS!

the new conversions are based on verifiable statistics. real evdence and science. and they apply fairly to people of all speeds.

past conversions were conjecture and applied illogically. how could two people running the 400; one in 48 and one in 52 have the same time conversion?

you don't like the new conversions as they compare to the old coversions, but the problem is the old conversions were wrong. and now those who benefitted from the former conversions are upset. sorry.

i mean here's the thing, the old conversions worked. look at the event with the steepest penalties, the DMR. Last year Bowdoin, Wis STP, Bates, and Middlebury all surpassed that national meet record on a flat track, in that order. Just behind them were MIT then further back was Tufts. All of these schools, with the exception of Steven's Point ran their qualifying times on banked tracks, then at nationals proved that the conversions were correct. Bowdoin went in with the top time as converted from a banked track, and won. Bates went in with the 6th best time as converted from a banked track, and was 3rd (trading with MIT) Middlebury was seeded 5th as converted from a banked track and and finished 4th. Can someone please tell me why there was a problem?

Do you have the research or know where I can get that information? Good or bad, I always like to know how committees come up with standards and conversions. You can make a better argument, for or against, if you have that information.

Y'all Know What the Midwest Is wrote:

P.S. The Northeast can suck eggs. Everyone knows the Midwest is better anyways. This will be proven at nationals this year just as it always is.

yeah, just like it was proven last year in the DMR... not!

.............................. wrote:

the new conversions are based on verifiable statistics. real evdence and science. and they apply fairly to people of all speeds.

past conversions were conjecture and applied illogically. how could two people running the 400; one in 48 and one in 52 have the same time conversion?

you don't like the new conversions as they compare to the old coversions, but the problem is the old conversions were wrong. and now those who benefitted from the former conversions are upset. sorry.

I also am curious what sort of evidence and science this is based on. I agree that adding a flat penalty regardless of time isn't the best way to do a conversion, but any "science" that says a 4:10 mile on a flat track is worth a 4:06.8 on a banked or oversized track is highly suspect.

Just thinking logically, it doesn't make a lot of sense that when running 4:40 mile pace, the flat turns on a 200 meter track slow you down 9 whole seconds over the course of a 5000.

Right, because I am sure that they were very careful in what races they looked at, and the original conversions were just picked out of a hat. It is very easy to manipulate statistics and data.

Did they take into account the types of races? Did it go out slow? Fast? Because that would allow for a major change in conversion times. Please can you show me the study? I would love to see it. Seriously.

Also, a little bit ridiculous. The new ones are far worse then the old ones. And the conversion for a person with a 48 sec and 52 sec are not going to be very far apart.

If we are going to say the old were correct, why would it matter if they were that much different for a 48 and a 52? Only 48-49 second guys are going to be trying to get in.

Oh, I can play this game too. Any 'science' that says a 1:50 on a banked is now a 1:52.5 is highly suspect. Did I play the game right?

be open minded please wrote:

Original poster had stats and facts backing up his argument. You have nothing but insults. I agree with the original post. D3 was already penalized more than D1 for some stupid reason. Now increasing that penalty is just stupid if anything it should have been less of a penalty to run on a banked track. Make it uniform with D1.

The original poster had a story with no evidence. A statistical study for all Divisions that set the new standards has the stats and facts.

The document is not yet available for public viewing, but used TFRRS data from all divisions to develop the proper conversion factor. The conversion is based off of overall time and facility specific information.

pogo wrote:

The original poster had a story with no evidence. A statistical study for all Divisions that set the new standards has the stats and facts.

If the new conversions are so good, why won't D1 use them?

Go back and read my original post again. There are FACTS in it! FACTS taken from TFRRS. TFRRS was used to make the study and compare data.

pogo wrote:

be open minded please wrote:

Original poster had stats and facts backing up his argument. You have nothing but insults. I agree with the original post. D3 was already penalized more than D1 for some stupid reason. Now increasing that penalty is just stupid if anything it should have been less of a penalty to run on a banked track. Make it uniform with D1.

The original poster had a story with no evidence. A statistical study for all Divisions that set the new standards has the stats and facts.

.............................. wrote:

the new conversions are based on verifiable statistics. real evdence and science. and they apply fairly to people of all speeds.

past conversions were conjecture and applied illogically. how could two people running the 400; one in 48 and one in 52 have the same time conversion?

you don't like the new conversions as they compare to the old coversions, but the problem is the old conversions were wrong. and now those who benefitted from the former conversions are upset. sorry.

Actually that's completely inaccurate. the new conversions are only based on a correlation of banked tracks vs. flat tracks overall times. All it tells us is that banked tracks produce faster times, which is more likely due to the fact that the best competition in teh country runs on banked tracks. You can't seperate the two variables of competition vs. facitily in this correlation. And that's already admitted by the committee. You can find the full report, studies, etc. all on the ncaa.org site if you wish. It's just correlation tables. Makes some sense in all our races, but nothing longer than 400m.

Look at the division 1 top 50 times in every event last year, and 99% of them, seriously, 99% of them are all on banked or oversized tracks, so that's simply where the competition is.

So bottom line, want to run a fast time, go to where the comptition is....a solid facility (i.e. banked track) don't get penazlied because you didn't want to travel to a good facility and stayed on a crappy flat track with no competition but now get hanicapped 10 seconds because statitics show those tracks produce slower times.

It'll change, but in the meantime, every NCAA school has to deal with this until they realize it's flaws.

You east coast people do realize that 5-6 years ago the NCAA made updates to the conversions that added time for the midwest and not the east coast? Or sorry, flat oversized tracks and not banked tracks.

might be wejo wrote:

pogo wrote:

The original poster had a story with no evidence. A statistical study for all Divisions that set the new standards has the stats and facts.

If the new conversions are so good, why won't D1 use them?

this. if you run a certain time for a certain distance, you have run that time for that distance. of course banked and over-sized tracks are probably a bit faster, but trying to guess by how much, even on the basis of some statistical averages, is ridiculous. if you think you will run a faster time on a banked/over-sized track, then have your coach take you to some meets that feature those kinds of tracks...they are usually the ones with the best competition, anyway...and that actually probably accounts more for the "statistics" you speak of.

I was the one who did the original research several years ago to finally explore the statistical relevance of flat, banked, and oversized tracks. I came out of DIII background then moved to DI. I was used to having my teams compete on flat 200 tracks and I knew that there was almost no chance to qualify. When I started looking at the data I found the three divisions were all different, and they shouldn't be. A 4:10 miler is running the same tempo regardless whether he is at DI-DII-DIII so the conversions should be the same. With the advent of the TFRRS system hundred of thousands of pieces of data can be analyzed to verify whether conversions are accurate. The latest study had four incredible bright coaches (all with Ph.D's) from all three divisions who looked at a mountain of data. The data does not lie and the conversions are the best we have ever had. Are they perfect? Of course not. One of the posters said that given the number of new banked tracks that more people head to those tracks. Yes that is true but you can statistically counter that with formulas. The complete document on how the conversions where done has been sent to every college coach in the country by the USTFCCCA and I'm sure its one their website. If not, just e-mail Dave Svodba at USTFCCCA and get a copy. Finally, the way the conversions have been done for the last 20 years has really been unfair in its applications and now we can at least have some level of playing field.

Regardless of the number of data points you have, the study is only meaningful if it isolated the portion of the difference between banked and flat track times that is due to the actual track, controlling for differences in the quality of the runners in the race, the amount of competition in the race, point in the season when the race is run, etc. Those other factors are quite difficult to quantify accurately, so the results are likely to be suspect.

Having PhDs use advanced statistical methods to work the tfrrs data is useful only if the data are actually sufficient to answer the question at hand. Using scientific statistical methods does not automatically make the results true and indisputable, as it is incredibly easy to mis-use statistical methods or any scientific method.

You have to take a step back from the numbers and the analyses and think about whether the results actually make logical sense and are in accordance with what actual experience tells us seems right. The data allegedly say that running a 5k on a flat 200 meter track makes you run 9 seconds slower than you would on a banked track. Does that actually make sense to anyone? Does that even seem remotely close? When you're working out on a flat track, do you really think each 35 second you do is actually worth a 34.3? These are the sorts of questions you have to think about after seeing the results of the statistical analyses, because they can give you a sense right away of whether your methods might be in need of revision.

observerofthings: Did you even bother to read the report? If not then you shouldn't speak.

Scientists always argue about findings and this is no different. Let me put it really easy to understand. This system that is going into place is the BEST system we have ever had. It is so much better than the crap we had before which was done by folks who had little idea of what should happen. All you have to do is look at how the flat tracks were treated. For a three year period in DI only about 2.5% of all NCAA qualifying performances came from a flat 200 track, yet 68% of ALL tracks in the US are flat 200 tracks. At least now there is a chance on a flat 200 track!

I would suggest you come up with a better one if you do not believe the data.

they should make appalachian state's track the standard. who doesnt love an octagon?

the original research done wrote:

observerofthings: Did you even bother to read the report? If not then you shouldn't speak.

Scientists always argue about findings and this is no different. Let me put it really easy to understand. This system that is going into place is the BEST system we have ever had. It is so much better than the crap we had before which was done by folks who had little idea of what should happen. All you have to do is look at how the flat tracks were treated. For a three year period in DI only about 2.5% of all NCAA qualifying performances came from a flat 200 track, yet 68% of ALL tracks in the US are flat 200 tracks. At least now there is a chance on a flat 200 track!

I would suggest you come up with a better one if you do not believe the data.

"BEST system we have ever had"

1) This is a subjective opinion. Personally, I would judge the quality of a system on the results rather than the method. However involved the method was, the results suck and I think the new system sucks.

"For a three year period in DI only about 2.5% of all NCAA qualifying performances came from a flat 200 track, yet 68% of ALL tracks in the US are flat 200 tracks."

2) Have you read anything on this thread? The percent of 200m flat tracks is COMPLETELY IRRELEVENT. Qualifying times mostly come out of big high profile invites. For DI, I would guess over 95% of meets like this are on "enhanced" tracks (either banked or oversized). The same is more or less true for DIII, except on a smaller scale. Teams do not travel to big national meets, instead meets are on the regional level. Now the Midwest has an advantage because more of their big time meets are held on flat tracks. In the east, all the existing big meets are on banked tracks.

the original research done wrote:

observerofthings: Did you even bother to read the report? If not then you shouldn't speak.

Scientists always argue about findings and this is no different. Let me put it really easy to understand. This system that is going into place is the BEST system we have ever had. It is so much better than the crap we had before which was done by folks who had little idea of what should happen. All you have to do is look at how the flat tracks were treated. For a three year period in DI only about 2.5% of all NCAA qualifying performances came from a flat 200 track, yet 68% of ALL tracks in the US are flat 200 tracks. At least now there is a chance on a flat 200 track!

I would suggest you come up with a better one if you do not believe the data.

If you are who you say you are and you've read the report and it's so easy to find, why don't you just post it here? It's not readily available, or at least easy to find online.