Is there an unbeatable Cross-Country score?

Magic Number 34 wrote:

liggity wrote:

you misunderstand the question. 35 is beatable by a large array of possible scores. The question is not simply "what is a big score that can get beat", it is what is the upper limit on a score before it is possible to lose with it.

How about this.

Team A goes 1-4 which totals 10 points.

Team B finishes with places 5-9, which totals 35 points. Then runners 6 and 7 come in at 10th and 11th.

Team A can still win as long as their #5 runner finishes no higher than 24th place. A 25th place finish would be 35 but lose since Team B’s 6th and 7th already finished breaking the tie.

So 34 is the magic number

The highest unbeatable score is 27. Show me how a team scoring 27 can lose. Show me how a team scoring 28 or more can win in every circumstance. The original question was highest score that will assure victory. It wasn’t how can my team score really low and still lose.

When we still did dual meets, we lost a meet 28-27 and we won a meet 27-28.

It's 27. If you go 1-2-3 in a dual meet, you automatically win no matter how slow the 4th and 5th runners finish.

liggity wrote:

Magic Number 35 wrote:

Everyone is wrong. The correct answer is 35

Team A goes 1-4 with #5 way back

Team B goes 5,6,7,8,9

5+6+7+8+9= 35

The first 4 places of a race are taken by 4 or less teams but as long as a team scores 35 they can’t be beat.

you misunderstand the question. 35 is beatable by a large array of possible scores. The question is not simply "what is a big score that can get beat", it is what is the upper limit on a score before it is possible to lose with it.

If you score 35 points in his scenario, the way he described, you are still unbeatable, and that answers the question of “what is the highest unbeatable score?”. You could interpret that question as just the number score, but looking at certain weird scenarios answers the question better IMO. A team COULD score 35 and be unbeatable. They could also finish 5-9 for 35 points and lose because a team went 1-4 and their 5th guy was 10th for a total of 20 points.

If you take 1-4 and then 25th at a big meet, you are unbeatable, because even if a team has 5,6,7,8,9 (the next best possible score) that is still 35 points, and since your 1 beat their 1, your 2 beat their 2, your 3 beat their 3, and your 4 beat their 4, and only their 5 beat your 5, you would win the tie breaker (at least in college).

2 true statements:

1. The highest score that guarantees a win no matter what is 27.

2. The highest possible score that could guarantee a win is 35.

Magic Number 34 wrote:

liggity wrote:

you misunderstand the question. 35 is beatable by a large array of possible scores. The question is not simply "what is a big score that can get beat", it is what is the upper limit on a score before it is possible to lose with it.

How about this.

Team A goes 1-4 which totals 10 points.

Team B finishes with places 5-9, which totals 35 points. Then runners 6 and 7 come in at 10th and 11th.

Team A can still win as long as their #5 runner finishes no higher than 24th place. A 25th place finish would be 35 but lose since Team B’s 6th and 7th already finished breaking the tie.

So 34 is the magic number

In this case, under the college tiebreaker rules, 35 still wins because the your team’s 1 beat their 1, your 2 beat their 2, your 3 beat their 3, and your 4 beat their 4 (only their 5 beat your 5). FWIW I think it’s a dumb tiebreaker.

In high school or any other meet that uses a 6th man tiebreaker, you are correct.

College tiebreaker rules wrote:

Magic Number 34 wrote:

How about this.

Team A goes 1-4 which totals 10 points.

Team B finishes with places 5-9, which totals 35 points. Then runners 6 and 7 come in at 10th and 11th.

Team A can still win as long as their #5 runner finishes no higher than 24th place. A 25th place finish would be 35 but lose since Team B’s 6th and 7th already finished breaking the tie.

So 34 is the magic number

In this case, under the college tiebreaker rules, 35 still wins because the your team’s 1 beat their 1, your 2 beat their 2, your 3 beat their 3, and your 4 beat their 4 (only their 5 beat your 5). FWIW I think it’s a dumb tiebreaker.

In high school or any other meet that uses a 6th man tiebreaker, you are correct.

Totally different topic, but the college tiebreaker is very stupid. It should come down to your 6th man.

theJeff wrote:

theJeff wrote:

lol, I made the same initial mistake malmo did, and still got in my answer behind malmo's correction. Sorry for posting on your coattails, mal.

27 is highest unbeatable score.

28 is lowest beatable score.

Geez, can you imagine going to a meet with a thousand runners, finishing 1-4-6-8-9, and coming in second? lolol

2-3-5-7-10 ftw

Many ways to get the scores, but 1,2,6,9,10 would seem even worse, to me. Top two and whole team top 10, buggers!

the first statement is true, as everyone has already figured out. The second is not. When your statement requires something else to happen, then it's not a guarantee.

Hardloper wrote:

It's 27. If you go 1-2-3 in a dual meet, you automatically win no matter how slow the 4th and 5th runners finish.

This is true. If you go 1-2-3, then 11-12-13-14, you still win 29-30 with the other team going 4-5-6-7-8-9-10.

Dave

Concurring with Hardloper.

I see a few pages with similar references.

https://sites.google.com/a/natickps.org/natick-cross-country/home/2014-cross-country-schedule/xc-meet-scoring?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fapp%2Ftemplates%2Fprint%2F&showPrintDialog=1

Quoting from the web page "A score of 27 or less always wins a meet, as does having the first, second and third place winners, with at least five runners finishing. "

This is, of course, for a dual meet, 7 runners per team (5 scoring, and 2 pushing/displacing).

Supertramp wrote:

What is the "highest low score" that is not beatable in Cross-Country?

Anyone have any idea?

This was the original question. If you score 27 at a meet, you cannot possibly lose. If you score 28 at a meet, you can lose to a team that scores 27.

CoachB wrote:

Supertramp wrote:

What is the "highest low score" that is not beatable in Cross-Country?

Anyone have any idea?

This was the original question. If you score 27 at a meet, you cannot possibly lose. If you score 28 at a meet, you can lose to a team that scores 27.

thanks coach b. what the hell is wrong with people?

this entire thread is an embarrassment

if you frequent this site and you think the answer is anything other than 27, you're too stupid to succeed at running, let alone coaching.

if you score 27 in xc you can't lose. i learned this the same day i learned how you got a team score.

I think assuming they all get 1-10 is a false assumption for the question that was posed.

JustAnotherRunner2001 wrote:

I think assuming they all get 1-10 is a false assumption for the question that was posed.

Not a false assumption. We are calculating the LOWEST score another team could get and not beat the winner. For that to happen all 10 places must go to the top two teams, and the score would be 27-28.

27 is the unbeatable score in cross country, in a dual, triangular or any other collection of teams.

By extension, if your team scores 27 or less, not only is your team guaranteed to win---your team also beat all the other teams in the race combined. In other words, all the other teams in the race could combine their best runners for a single top 5 scoring group and your team still beat them all put together.

27 is the absolute highest score that guarantees a win.

But other scores can be unbeatable depending on the scoring spots that are filled by that team (thus those scoring spots are unavailable to the opposing team).

If a team goes 1-2-3-4-24=34 they have an unbeatable score because of the scoring spots (1,2,3,4) they have denied to the other team, ie 5-6-7-8-9=35.

stateroftheoblivious wrote:

27 is the absolute highest score that guarantees a win.

But other scores can be unbeatable depending on the scoring spots that are filled by that team (thus those scoring spots are unavailable to the opposing team).

If a team goes 1-2-3-4-24=34 they have an unbeatable score because of the scoring spots (1,2,3,4) they have denied to the other team, ie 5-6-7-8-9=35.

Your first sentence answers the question. The rest has nothing to do with the question.

I posted before, not sure, why it was deleted, if you want 35 to be your answer, don't run a dual, or tri meet, quads and up for you.

malmo wrote:

stateroftheoblivious wrote:

27 is the absolute highest score that guarantees a win.

But other scores can be unbeatable depending on the scoring spots that are filled by that team (thus those scoring spots are unavailable to the opposing team).

If a team goes 1-2-3-4-24=34 they have an unbeatable score because of the scoring spots (1,2,3,4) they have denied to the other team, ie 5-6-7-8-9=35.

Your first sentence answers the question. The rest has nothing to do with the question.

15 is perfect and can never be beaten

27 can’t be beat

34 is the highest a team can score without getting beat if winning team goes 1-4, 24 thus making this the correct answer because no other combo can score lower.

A team can score 28 and lose

A team can go 1-4, 25 and score 35 and win

A team can go 5-9 and score 35 and lose

Agree to disagree

Fun thread, OP.

What the hell does 1-4 plus 24 have to do with anything? It's not relevant to the question being ssked.