Where does D3 #1 NCC finish in D1 or D2?

Crazy wrote:

Take NCC team time at Notre Dame 2:02.53 in the gold race. Put that team time in the blue race with all the D1 teams and they finish 21st of 25.

...sitting their 2 and 5...

Crazy wrote:

Take NCC team time at Notre Dame 2:02.53 in the gold race. Put that team time in the blue race with all the D1 teams and they finish 21st of 25.

Not that your point isn't valid, but 2 of NCC's top 5 at AAE didn't run at Notre Dame (#2 Morrison and #5 Plank). Might move them up a little.

The year in which SUNY Cortland finished one point behind Villanova at the PSU National XC meet and went on to win D3 nationals is 2008. However, Nova was NOT a top-20 team that year and was very lucky to have made the NCAA meet with at-large points. They would go on to finish a distant last place (31st) at NCAAs.

One point over looked in this discussion would be the scholarships that are available to D1 and D2 schools. If NCC could offer scholarships for athletics they would be a top 10 D1 XC school every year. Al is a great coach! There have been a large number of really good runners that have been sitting in Al's office but have gone somewhere else because they were going to get money at mid level D1 schools.

This is a fun discussion but in the end, NCC could not compete at a high D1 level with the limited access to high level recruits.

Part

easy wrote:

One point over looked in this discussion would be the scholarships that are available to D1 and D2 schools. If NCC could offer scholarships for athletics they would be a top 10 D1 XC school every year. Al is a great coach! There have been a large number of really good runners that have been sitting in Al's office but have gone somewhere else because they were going to get money at mid level D1 schools.

This is a fun discussion but in the end, NCC could not compete at a high D1 level with the limited access to high level recruits.

if NCC offered scholarships....it would be a DI school...

Sorry, part of the problem is that a large portion of d1 schools (probably something like the middle 4/5s of schools, as the bottom 1/10 don't really fund their program and the top 1/10 are unbeatable) are afraid of racing d3 schools... Bc then coaches have to explain to their AD how they lost to a school with no scholarship money available... So you'll never have the push to allow d3 teams to enter the bigger races at invites where times are always going to be faster... The Notre dame invite is the perfect example...

Therefore, we will never truly have the apples to apples xc team comparison that you can sometimes have with individual achievements in track and field (e.g. LeDuc and Crain setting hype prs after getting to run in a race where they aren't driving the pace)

One of the big things I like about the Paul Short program is that small schools have a chance to run against big schools. Too bad NCC doesn't travel to this meet, like Adams State did this year.

Holla at ya boi wrote:

Sorry, part of the problem is that a large portion of d1 schools (probably something like the middle 4/5s of schools, as the bottom 1/10 don't really fund their program and the top 1/10 are unbeatable) are afraid of racing d3 schools... Bc then coaches have to explain to their AD how they lost to a school with no scholarship money available... So you'll never have the push to allow d3 teams to enter the bigger races at invites where times are always going to be faster... The Notre dame invite is the perfect example...

Therefore, we will never truly have the apples to apples xc team comparison that you can sometimes have with individual achievements in track and field (e.g. LeDuc and Crain setting hype prs after getting to run in a race where they aren't driving the pace)

The BEST 4th-5th NCC guys were top 25 DIII XC. '93? they had 6 AAs, when you had to be in top 25 vs 35.

It is laughable to suggest that this team - the best DIII XC ever, the UTEP '81 of DIII XC, could do any more than qualify for DI XC. They would be 25-30th at the national meet.

Recent teams would maybe be top 10 at Great Lakes. Thats it. There is nothing to suggest they are some sleeper cell being denied "real" competition because of the prejudice against DIII teams. That is delusional.

Crain ran 28:54. So what? So did +20 DI guys whos names you can't remember, year in year out.

Dude d3 was so weak back then, completely different ball game now....But are you admitting Crain would be a d1 all American, top 20ish, per your 10k reference?

Run like a boss, Rick Ross wrote:

Dude d3 was so weak back then, completely different ball game now....But are you admitting Crain would be a d1 all American, top 20ish, per your 10k reference?

top 20 on the track, bucko.

in XC he might be 50th. An outside shot @ AA. In DI, runners of his ability are a dime a dozen. Crain ran 806 indoors (albeit w/ a fast finish). Lets say he could have run 759. There were 41 DI runners under 8. So Crain does not even make that cut.

And if you want get all nativist, and start omitting Kenyan (but not Aus, NZ, UK etc athletes) then you are splitting hairs.

the point is Crain was the 2nd fastest NCC 10k guy ever, and he would not make the travelling team on the top 5 programs. that is the truth about DIII. Get used to it...

You know what's more persuasive than your bias opinion?? It's the actions of d1 coaches hoping to get the at large bids... Those teams consistently cower away from d3 schools bc they know they can be beat... Meaning that the bottom 10 teams, at d1 nats, in any given year, believe the top d3 programs can beat them...

DNF, they'd all stop at 8k out of habit.

Okay so the way I look at it this question is pretty simple to answer. Can North Central College compete with division 1 schools? No, hell no. Crain ran 28:52 or whatever next to three Oregon guys jogging for time. Yeah those guys were studs, but let's be real, D1 is just on a different level than D3. Crain woulda get eaten alive in D1 nats. Honestly there's no D3 runner who actually thinks the top D3 team can compete at the D1 level. Like that's absurd. However when you compare the top D3 program(s) to terrible D1 programs, it's comical. How can you have be able to field a team on full scholarship with 40,000 students at your school and still get beat by North F'ing Central. Gimme a break.

As for D2, we- I mean they would probably kill those guys. Other than Adams, none of those teams are even good. GVSU got beat by NCC in Wisco last weekend convincingly so ofc they would at least trophy in D2 almost every year. North Central could probably trophy in both of them this year in back to back weekends but then they wouldn't be able to party after nats so that won't happen probably

Haha yeah Western State is terrible. So is Chico. Colorado Mines is garbage too.

Guess what? You're the dumb as f***.

"GVSU got beat by NCC in Wisco last weekend convincingly so ofc they would at least trophy in D2 almost every year."

^ Logic at its finest.

If you're comparing races, you have to understand that for the top guys in D3, a lot of these races are time trials. Just in these last few years alone, many D3 runners have made the jump and shown that they are more than capable of running in D1 races

1)Years ago, Tim Nelson from Stout broke the field from the gun at XC Nats. It wasn't even a contest, and on Terre Haute's course, that's saying something. Yet, when allowed to run with many of the top D1 runners placed 35th at the Wisco Adidas invite, finishing 1 second behind Northern Arizona stud Futsum Zienasellassie. Also broke 14 for the 5k at Mt. Sac with a 5th place finish at 13:57 for his heat.

2)Michael Leduc is another example, running half of the 3k steeple by himself to run 8:46 at nationals. Weeks earlier at Penn Relays he also won his heat of the steeple in 8:47, beating some solid D1 runners to boot. Leduc won XC Nats over Crain in a close battle, but that should be a testament in itself since both runners have set many records and always run great at big meets.

3)Jake Waterman of Purdue, who transferred from Wheaton for his senior year. Before transferring he was in the mid-20's at D3 XC Nats just once. Once he did move though: He ended up winning the Meyo 5k, placing 2nd in the Drake Relays Steeple, and punched his ticket for the National meet. Again, just his first year in D1 and he was already able to run with the big guns. While placing 19th at Nationals, this should still show the kind of potential this kid had. Imagine what he could have done if he had gone to Purdue from the start.

4)John Crain of NCC. Dude has some wicked range= 8:10 3k, 14:05 5k, and 28:52 for the 10K. He's won multiple championships in D3 and had a handful of second place finishes as well. Obviously, his 10k being the best PR was run at Stanford, but it was almost a full minute personal best. On top of that he has also gotten 3 second place finishes at Drake Relays, 2 in the 5k and one in the DMR; proof that he runs well against D1 competition. In Cross Country, he also finished right with/just behind Ryan Rutherford of ISU at Illinois Intercollegiates.

5)Jordan Schilit of Haverford. He's run 1:51 for the 800, 13:59 for the 5k, and sub 30 for the 10K. His 5K was run at the Princeton Invite where he placed 2nd out of 100 runners. Hasn't ran great at D3 nationals, but has popped many solid races and his range alone would be dirty for just about any All-American D1 runner.

Now, I'm not trying to bash D1, because a lot of guys who are no-names would be all-stars in D3. Many of those guys do things runners can only dream about. The point is all of these guys have ran the times they have off of D3 training. This means no money or the special treatment a lot of D1 teams get. These D3 studs might not have any shot of winning the meet or being top 10, but you have to be joking to say that these guys don't have a shot at being All-American in D1. Each runner is very skilled and are gamers, and lots of other D3 runners are starting to make this jump as well. The team that seems to be making this jump right now is NCC, and they could very well even be the best team in Illinois (although Illinois is definitely as good). It's hard to place where they would be as a team, but honestly if they fired on all cylinders they should be able to at least qualify for D1 Nats.

Each of those DIII standouts are also-rans in DI

Its a nice fantasy to believe that DIII is as competitive as DI but that is not even remotely true, even for NCC.

Again, DIII is about as competitive as a 2nd tier DI conference. I think of DIII as similar to the Big East Conference.

Big East vs DIII

sub 350 1500

17/16

sub 14:30 5

16/21

sub 30 10

7/6

sub 9 SC

4/3

http://www.tfrrs.org/lists/1281.html?gender=m

http://www.tfrrs.org/lists/1232.html?gender=m

Thats what DIII is. Are some guys from the Big East competitive at the DI national level? of course - these are DI schools. Is the Big East always in it? Not a chance.

So the best from dozens of competitive DIII schools are collectively about as competitive as the 8-10 ? schools in the Big East. No better no worse.

[quote]Smoke up wrote:

Its a nice fantasy to believe that DIII is as competitive as DI but that is not even remotely true, even for NCC.

quote]

Who are you answering? Did anyone actually say that DIII is as competitive as DI? No one thinks that unless they are totally delusional. Even the most pro-DII comments only seem to suggest that the occasional good DIII team would qualify for DI nationals or that there are sometimes very good individuals.