NCAA releases it's NCAA xc qualifiers and they match up with LetsRun.com prediction

Guys, that's so weird. Why ALWAYS say "I told you so"?

Was there a major audience of running geeks suggesting that you would be inaccurate? What is the point of saying "WE TOLD YOU SO"?

Should you not have predicted correctly? If not Letsrun, then who?

You are obviously passionate about the sport and your website is extremely informative.

What is the deal with ALWAYS saying "WE PREDICTED" or "AS WE SAID"?

Cool. Getting accurate predictive information 24 hours in advance is super important. Especially in this instance.

Better than pay websites like Flotrack.

LetsRun.com wrote:

We told you so/Your welcome.

http://www.ncaa.com/news/cross-country-men/article/2016-11-12/di-cross-country-mens-and-womens-championship-qualifiers

Your hubris is why you're not respected. You're welcome

LetsRun.com wrote:

We told you so/Your welcome.

http://www.ncaa.com/news/cross-country-men/article/2016-11-12/di-cross-country-mens-and-womens-championship-qualifiers

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Question for LR Fans:

Do you guys/gals think it is fair for individual qualifiers coming out of a region like the Mid-Atlantic [where only 2 teams advance] to have to finish basically in the top 10 or 12 in order to qualify (top 5 not on an advancing team go), while regions with 3, 4 or 5+ teams qualifying send individuals who finished say 20th-25th? Are 2 At-Large selections enough to overcome this? I have my honest opinion but I want to hear from the board on this one.

Back before only 2 teams from each region advanced (late 1970's), I qualified as an individual in my region by getting 16th. If only 2 teams advanced I would not have advanced. With 2 teams advancing I would have been the 9th individual (I was 16th over all), with 5 teams advancing I was the 5th of 6 individuals advancing.

Thoughts please.

Looking at this, it looks not every region gets an equal number of individuals. Mountain men only had 3 go where as south-east got 6. Maybe MOuntain men got fewer individuals because they sent so many teams to nationals: SUU, Northern Arizona, BYU, Colorado, Colorado State. If that is the case then the system is fairly fair. More teams, fewer individuals.

30:45XC1978 wrote: Do you guys/gals think it is fair for individual qualifiers coming out of a region like the Mid-Atlantic [where only 2 teams advance] to have to finish basically in the top 10 or 12 in order to qualify (top 5 not on an advancing team go), while regions with 3, 4 or 5+ teams qualifying send individuals who finished say 20th-25th? Are 2 At-Large selections enough to overcome this? I have my honest opinion but I want to hear from the board on this one.

Back before only 2 teams from each region advanced (late 1970's), I qualified as an individual in my region by getting 16th. If only 2 teams advanced I would not have advanced. With 2 teams advancing I would have been the 9th individual (I was 16th over all), with 5 teams advancing I was the 5th of 6 individuals advancing.

Thoughts please.

The current method is fair. The 'top 5 non-advancing' rule makes individual qualifying more fair for individuals by addressing regional strength. Finishing 10-12th in a weak region is roughly the same as finishing 20-25th in a strong region. If the NCAA were to go to 'top 10 in your region' or 'top 5 not on an auto-qualify team (if individual's team qualifies, individual spot is lost and not re-allocated', it would be very hard to individually qualify from the hardest region (possibly none in some years), while having the same level of difficulty from the weakest region.

LetsRun.com wrote:

We told you so/Your welcome.

http://www.ncaa.com/news/cross-country-men/article/2016-11-12/di-cross-country-mens-and-womens-championship-qualifiers

*You're

Good grief.

I'm new to understanding the qualifying process ... if I understand correctly it is 4 individuals per region but they must be in the top 25 (I think, may be a different number). I would also maybe add a clause for automatically qualifying the top 10 (or maybe 8).

My point of view is as an Ohio State fan ... our guy Stifel finished 8th. Great Lakes was projected to take as many as 5 teams but the way things worked out, only the top 2 teams advanced. Indiana was actually tied for 2nd and lost the #6 runner ... Indiana then took 2 of the 4 individual spots. Had Indiana qualified, Stifel would be making the short trip to Terre Haute.

Stifel finished 23rd at Pre-Nats, 7th at B1G, and 8th at Regionals (7 seconds out of 1st). Seems like this is a guy who deserved a chance at NCAA. I know he should have made top 4 and made it on his own, but watching the race and seeing him finish 8th and knowing how many teams had a chance, you would think he would be there.

And I understand the top non-qualifier at every region probably can make a similar argument.

If the Brojos have erred, their error is not especially egregious. They receive a special dispensation of grace and good will because of the amazing coverage during the regional races.

nyc broadcaster wrote:

LetsRun.com wrote:

We told you so/Your welcome.

http://www.ncaa.com/news/cross-country-men/article/2016-11-12/di-cross-country-mens-and-womens-championship-qualifiers

Your hubris is why you're not respected. You're welcome

Did flocrap get it totally wrong or just not the correct order?

They had Furman and Eastern Kentucky as qualifying because they entered in EKU as having a win over Oregon. This didn't happen so they announced those two teams as qualifying when they actually hadn't. Cal and Boise State were the last two teams in.

KevinL wrote:

My point of view is as an Ohio State fan ... our guy Stifel finished 8th. Great Lakes was projected to take as many as 5 teams but the way things worked out, only the top 2 teams advanced. Indiana was actually tied for 2nd and lost the #6 runner ... Indiana then took 2 of the 4 individual spots. Had Indiana qualified, Stifel would be making the short trip to Terre Haute.

.

The tiebreaker at regionals is not the 6th runner. The tiebreaker at regionals is comparing the runners from the two teams and their counterpart. (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 5v5) and the winner of the tiebreaker is whoever wins more of those matchups. Michigan State won that tiebreaker because they won 1, 3, and 4, not because their 6th came in ahead of Indiana's 6th.

If anything, what really screwed over Stiefl was Raymond of EMU beating Crist of Indiana by .7, as switching that result would give Indiana the number 2 spot over MSU and send your guy to Nationals.

GLRunner wrote:

The tiebreaker at regionals is not the 6th runner. The tiebreaker at regionals is comparing the runners from the two teams and their counterpart. (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 5v5) and the winner of the tiebreaker is whoever wins more of those matchups. Michigan State won that tiebreaker because they won 1, 3, and 4, not because their 6th came in ahead of Indiana's 6th.

Breaking Ties

Team ties in regional championship meets shall be broken by comparing the place finish of each team member 1-5 versus his

or her respective competitor on the opposing team (Team A’s first finisher vs. Team B’s first finisher, etc.). The advancement

advantage goes to the team winning the majority (best of five) of the comparisons.

I did not know this either, but indeed, it is as GLRunner described, at the top of page 16.

I realize that the BrosJo did not get such great college educations, but even in grade school I knew that the possessive of "it" is "its"--no apostrophe. (And I went to grade school in Texas, by the way.)

You guys have cleaned up your headlines in the past. Please clean up this one.

If a region can't send four individuals because the fourth didn't finish in the top 25, why isn't that spot given to the next in line from another region? Is there a ranking of those individuals anywhere?

Hey, just while we are feeling superior about grammar and consistency... who is this kid named Yale, and where is James Randon College?

MikeS wrote:

If a region can't send four individuals because the fourth didn't finish in the top 25, why isn't that spot given to the next in line from another region? Is there a ranking of those individuals anywhere?

The spot that went "unused" from the Mountain region did go to someone else. Jacob Thomson from Kentucky in the SE got the "third" at large spot (he was 7th in his region and was the next highest individual across all other regions not already qualified). This also happened in 2006. However, this year the NCAA did not initially announce Thomson as the 38th individual. The coaches from KY had to appeal and used the precedence from 2006 to get them to reverse their decision and fill the field.

Interesting that the NCAA XC rules do not address this situation but do address breaking a tie among would be Auto qualifiers. In that situation, they would reduce the number of At-Larges. With < 4 from a region happening twice in 10 years, maybe they should change to rules to say the at-larges will be increased when there are < 4 from a region.

AT-LARGE SELECTION — INDIVIDUALS

The committee will select two at-large individuals by identifying the highest non-qualifying individual finishers at the regional

meets. All individual at-large qualifiers must finish in the top 25 within their region.

Breaking Ties to Advance to Championship Finals

1. Automatic qualifiers. If a true tie exists between two or more individuals from a region for the fourth automatic

qualifying position, all tied individuals will advance to the NCAA championships meet. However, the additional automatic

qualifiers will reduce the number of at-large individuals selected to the championships meet.

2. At-large selections. To break a tie for any at-large individual selection, the time differential between tied runners

and the last automatic individual qualifier (the fourth-place automatic qualifier) from their respective regions will be

compared. The runner with the smallest differential will advance.