WISCO INVITE & PRE-NATS

Amazing that the Wisconsin/adidas Invite gets twice the top-level teams as the Nationals course that has not been used before. [Last year, Terre Haute was on a non-desired Sunday and the course had been run by most of the runners that might race there. Here, there are only the two races on the Nationals course, and the majority of the big guns are choosing Wisconsin.]

Predictions for both meets?

Also Note: Kennedy Kithuka (Texas Tech) is racing at the Chille Pepper Invite

I was surprised the Badgers went to Chicago instead of Louisville last weekend.

Chili Pepper at Arkansas is the same weekend. Is Wisco getting teams that used to go to Chili Pepper?

cmack wrote:

Chili Pepper at Arkansas is the same weekend. Is Wisco getting teams that used to go to Chili Pepper?

Arkansas, at least.

I live a mile away from the Wisco course and will set up booby traps for nationals.

Here's who Chile Pepper currently says is coming-

http://www.chilepepperfestival.org/

Arkansas Little Rock

Arkansas State University

Baylor University

Georgia State University

High Point University

James Madison University

Louisiana-Lafayette

LSU

McNeese State University

Missouri State University

Nevada

New Mexico Highlands University

Northwestern State University

Ouachita Baptist University

SMU

Southern Miss

Southern Nazarene University

Southwestern Oklahoma State University

TCU

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi

The University of Texas-Pan American

Univ. of Alabama Huntsville

University of Central Arkansas

University of Houston

University of Richmond

University of Texas at Tyler

University of West Florida

I assume Arkansas also.

Madison basically ran underclass men, their top four did not run.

Wisco Fan wrote:

I was surprised the Badgers went to Chicago instead of Louisville last weekend.

They need to determine the rest of the line-up, so they are not racing for team stuff until the Wisconsin/adidas Invite. Racing a big race before then would not be a good prep for your own big show. The women went so they will get some feel for the course from what Stinzi can share, I presume.

Many teams will be going to Louisville blind. It will be interesting to see how this effects the results.

Yo. Wisconsin is gonna be off da chain. Pulling most of the good schools. Dat shit cray. Where ORegon gonna be? I gotta see Jordan Hasay run... DAT ASS

Any start lists for Wisco? Lousiville is a flattish and non-technical course, no need to trip out there to preview it. Just hope it isn't muddy as it becomes a swamp quickly when it rains hard.

Here is the current listing of teams; I do not think that they give a list of individual members of teams.

Men (47)

• Arizona

• Arizona State

• Arkansas

• Brown

• California

• Cal Poly

• UCLA

• Colorado State

• Columbia

• Cornell

• Dartmouth

• Eastern Kentucky

• Georgia

• Harvard

• Illinois

• Indiana

• Iona

• Iowa

• Iowa State

• Kansas

• LaSalle

• Marquette

• Michigan

• Michigan State

• Minnesota

• Missouri

• Nebraska

• New Mexico

• North Carolina

• NC State

• Northern Arizona

• Notre Dame

• Ohio State

• Oklahoma

• Penn State

• Portland

• Princeton

• Providence

• Purdue

• Stanford

• Syracuse

• Texas A&M

• Texas

• Virginia

• Washington

• Wisconsin

• Yale Women (45)

• Arizona

• Arizona State

• Boston College

• Brown

• BYU

• California

• Cal Poly

• UCLA

• Colorado State

• Columbia

• UConn

• Cornell

• Dartmouth

• Duke

• Georgia

• Harvard

• Indiana

• Iona

• Iowa

• Iowa State

• Kansas

• LaSalle

• Michigan State

• Minnesota

• Missouri

• Nebraska

• New Mexico

• North Carolina

• NC State

• Northern Arizona

• Northwestern

• Notre Dame

• Penn State

• Princeton

• Providence

• Purdue

• San Francisco

• Syracuse

• Texas A&M

• Toledo

• Vanderbilt

• Virginia

• Washington

• Wisconsin

• Yale

Wow, the lists has been updated since the above post. The Men's list is the the same, even though it now says 46 teams rather than 47, the same 47 teams are listed.

There were four women's teams added: Eastern Kentucky, Ohio State, Stanford, Weber State. Ohio State and Stanford have had the meet on their schedules all year, so the prior list probably had some omissions.

For the Men, 21 of the 30 ranked teams will be in Madison (8/13 split for 1-15/16-30) and it's 20 for the Women (10/10 split).

For the Men, BYU, Villanova and Oregon going to Pre-Nats is a loss, but they picked up Oklahoma, Iona and Portland (among others). That will be a great race for the team title.

For the Women, Oregon and Villanova are the only losses, but they picked up Cornell, Penn State, Weber State, Boston College and Yale (there are others, these are just the ranked teams). It will be fun to see if Arizona can beat Washington again and where Iowa State will fit into the mix.

The course is fast now and no rain is forecast for the next week. The current forecast for Oct 12 is 55, sunny and 0% chance of rain.

Lalang ran 23:11 to win it last year. Sheila Reid ran 20:00.

Minor Stuff wrote:

Lalang ran 23:11 to win it last year. Sheila Reid ran 20:00.

Fantastic run by Sheila.

Rank who the top 5 will be.

1. Wisconsin

2. Oklahoma

3. Iona

4. Northern Arizona

5. Portland

6. Arkansas

7. Stanford

8. Princeton

9. Syracuse

10. Texas

11. Michigan

12. Columbia

13. Arizona State

14. Texas A&M

Here is my top 14.

At his press conference on Monday, Mick Byrne said that Mo Ahmed will definitely not run in the 10/12 adidas meet and the decision on whether to redshirt him has not been made. Maverick Darling will definitely run and Reed Connor's status will be decided on Friday. Byrne further said that if Ahmed is redshirted, then it only makes sense to redshirt Connor as well.

Bottom line is that if Connor runs on Friday, Ahmed will almost certainly be running at the Big Ten's and NCAA's.

If Connor doesn't run, then it will be another two weeks to find out whether they will redshirt.

Ahmed has one XC season, two indoor seasons and one outdoor season left.

Connor has one XC season, one indoor season and two outdoor seasons left.

http://www.uwbadgers.com/allaccess/?media=339550

If Byrne decides to redshirt both Ahmed and Connor he is setting the team up to very possibly lose Big 10s and not qualify for NCAAs. After Darling they have a bunch of guys who are good but not quite good enough to be 1st team all conference or top 25 in the region. Seriously, does Brill become #2? The guy's run some great steeples but has never even made Wisco's top 7 before this year. Finnerty? Before this year he hadn't run an XC race since he was at Burnsville High School. Brice? He was like 40th at Big 10s and around 250th at NCAAs last year. Who else is Mick going to throw in there? I bet he is kicking himself right now for burning a year of Connor's eligibility in 2009 when Reed wasn't in the top 7.