Division 3 National Field Discussion

As we all know, last year Johns Hopkins number one runner, Weston Butler took off Cross Country. At the time, it seemed like the right move. Having attended 4 classes last semester (one of which was a chemistry section that Weston mistook for a tinder date), Weston did not have the time to concern himself with the likes with Haverford or Dickinson out on the cross country course.

However, it was agreed that Wes would come back and help out the team in 2014. Instead, he decided to forego his final year of elgibility and become a professional EDM groupie/ Investment Banker.

There should be a huge asterix next to any team's accomplishment in the mideast. Sure, Haverford won CC conferences and Carnegie Mellon won Regionals, but they didn't face the best competitor in the region.

"I'm going to work so that it's a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it"

- Weston Butler (on his next Tinder exploit)

^^^ this guy is not funny

Eat a dick mideast runner, we all know the mideast stole bids from the atlantic

You might be able to make a case for RPI but Dickinson beat Oneonta during the regular season at Geneseo which basically seals the deal with at large bids. And RPI and Oneonta finished so close that they would almost have to take both to take RPI. It was the right decision.

What the hell is going on here? I'm sick of hearing all this crap about how Carnegie Mellon and the Mideast suck. They don't. Carnegie Mellon had a great performance at the Mideast regional and beat 4 good teams including Widener, Dickinson, and Haverford. They are ranked 15th in the nation and deserve at least that. They came second to WashU at their conference meet despite somewhat poor performances from their 2 and 3 runners. They are going to do big things at nationals this week.

Yeah right, Dickinson sucks donkey dick if that has not been made abundantly clear and Haverford choked on a fat one.

mideast regioner wrote:

What the hell is going on here? I'm sick of hearing all this crap about how Carnegie Mellon and the Mideast suck. They don't. Carnegie Mellon had a great performance at the Mideast regional and beat 4 good teams including Widener, Dickinson, and Haverford. They are ranked 15th in the nation and deserve at least that. They came second to WashU at their conference meet despite somewhat poor performances from their 2 and 3 runners. They are going to do big things at nationals this week.

In other words, they lost to the #4 midwest team without its #1 runner. BIG THINGS A COMIN'

Why don't u take a look at all the teams that lost to the #4 midwest team without its #1 runner. Washu without padgett is still a very good team, with him they should be challenging for top 5

http://static.psbin.com/3/8/6sajzwz8b4irkj/AAEInvitationalM.pdf

Again, WashU was missing maybe the best guy in the country at UAAs. Even if we accept for the sake of argument that Carnegie is as good as WashU without Padgett (Despite losing to them by a pretty big margin), that means that Carnegie is only about as good as MW #7. Doesn't mean they suck, but it does show that some very deserving teams are being left at home even with the new at-large system. I agree with those above saying it probably has a lot to do with Platteville's head to head record vs the at-large Central teams.

Yeah, I mean Platteville lost head to head versus most of the teams that got the last few at-large picks, as pointed out above

Who's going to win individual/ team? What's the course like, good viewing course or am I going to be holding my dick all day?

What everyone is failing to realize is that Carnegie earned their spot at nationals by winning their region. Yes they almost likely won't win the meet or finish top 4 but they still deserve to go. It's a shame that Platteville and Oshkosh don't get to go but the committee knows better than me picking them over St. Thomas or Calvin (in my mind the last two in).

D3WIAC wrote:

might be wejo wrote:

The Wisconsin state schools being d3 is bull anyways. They have three times the undergrad enrollment that most other d3 schools have.

Right, like the "scholarships" the expensive private schools hand out to their athletes is legit. How many "leadership" scholarships do schools like St. Thomas or Dickensnon hand out to their student athletes over non-student athletes?

I know dickinson does not do that. you're thinking of Hopkins.

Guzman (Oxy) will win. He's been running under the radar all year and is peaking at the right time.

"The committee knows".

If this is true then the thread is done. The committee is human and doesn't "know", they just do their biased best.

What the committee did was terrible. By my estimations At-Large bids should have gone out in this order.

1. UW-La Crosse: Running very close to EC who has been 2-3 all year.

2. MIT: 3rd in New England, ran really well at Oshkosh and is very deserving.

3. Williams: Appeared to have tough race at regionals, but their resume puts them 3rd.

4. Wash U: Beat everyone in UAA without #1, Only lost to MIT, La Crosse, EC, NCC, and Central (but that was very early) this year.

5. Central (Iowa): Ran pretty well all year. Have some quality wins against Stout, Carleton, Wash U, and Chicago.

6. Stout: Lost on tiebreaker to Central at EC, beat Carleton, Johns Hopkins, and Calvin this year.

7. Middlebury: Based on where they have run in the New England and where they have been by comparison to other teams, 7th is where I put them.

8. Platteville: Beat Stout and Oshkosh this year, both have been ranked in top 20 at points during the season. Their bad losses were when they were missing runners. If Rose-Hulman can get pulled in with no resume for beating Calvin, Platteville should get pulled in for beating Oshkosh (twice).

9. Oshkosh: Beat Stout, Carleton, Calvin (twice), Johns Hopkins, and nearly beat Wabash (twice)

10. Cortland: Not much to base this off of but they seem to have come on really strong and running close to Geneseo earns them a bid.

11. Carleton: Beat Johns Hopkins

12. Tufts: I just believe the New England to be strong, and after the way Johns Hopkins performed at Oshkosh (the Mideast #3), I can't give them any credit, when they lost to Chicago (the Midwest #9).

13. Johns Hopkins: Mideast deserves a 3rd for sure, because the South and West don't and neither does the Great Lakes before them.

14. Haverford: Bad day at regionals? Resume from Paul short gets them in.

15-16). St. Thomas, Dickinson or Rose-Hulman, Calvin: Either you take Rose-Hulman because of Calvin, or you say Rose-Hulman doesn't deserve it and give it to St. Thomas and Dickinson.

Discuss!

what no one ever seems to be able to comprehend in these threads is that the published criteria for at-large selection explicitly state that PERFORMANCE AT THE REGIONAL MEET is the overriding factor in selection...as it has been since this selection system was instituted 7 years ago.

the committee has the prerogative to look at head-to-head match ups when picking out the last couple of teams, but they were never going to go back to mid-October and pick the field based on pre-nats/paul short or whatever.

there are so many circular firing squad scenarios when you do that it could never be fair. show up and run well at your regional and you get your bid.

So UW-Oshkosh and UW-Plattevile ran poorly at Regions? Surprising that the girls got six but the guys only five?

So much I don't understand

No, Oshkosh and Platteville did not run poorly at regionals. The both ran fairly well but in their region you can be a very good team and still get snubbed for a school further East because of how many great teams are in the Midwest. Platteville decided to not run their full team during the regular season because they thought they were good enough to make nationals without any good quality regular season races. Because of this and the committee's weak criteria, They did not make nationals and neither did Oshkosh. Had Platteville beat UW Stout at Regionals, the midwest would have 7 teams at nationals.