2024 NCAA XC Regionals: Who Is Going to the Big Dance & Who Missed Out

All nine regionals are in the books, which means we can project the field for the 2024 NCAA Cross Country Championships, which will be held next week in Madison, Wis. Eighteen teams per sex earned auto bids today by finishing in the top two in their regions, and thanks to Bo Waggoner’s XC Quals page, we can project the remaining 13 at-large teams per sex.

*Men’s projections *Women’s projections

We’ve run the numbers and have provided some analysis below, including a look at how all 60 ranked teams fared on Friday as well as which teams just missed out on qualifying.

Women’s Qualifiers

There weren’t any really huge shocks as 28 of the top 30 ranked teams ended up making it to NCAAs.

Regional results of the women’s top 30 (based on the most recent USTFCCCA coaches’ poll)

Ranking/Results

1. BYU – 1st Mountain, auto bid.
2. Oregon – 1st West, auto bid.
3. Washington – 3rd West, at-large bid.
4. Northern Arizona – 2nd Mountain, auto bid.
5. West Virginia – 1st Mid-Atlantic, auto bid.
6. Notre Dame – 1st Great Lakes, auto bid.
7. Alabama – 1st South, auto bid.
8. Georgetown – 2nd Mid-Atlantic, auto bid.
9. Utah – 4th Mountain, at-large bid.
10. New Mexico – 3rd Mountain, at-large bid.
11. Providence – 1st Northeast, auto bid.
12. Stanford – 2nd West, auto bid.
13. North Carolina – 3rd Southeast, at-large bid.
14. Wisconsin – 2nd Great Lakes, auto bid.
15. Virginia – 2nd Southeast, auto bid.
16. Tennessee – 4th South, at-large bid.
17. NC State – 1st Southeast, auto bid.
18. Florida – 2nd South, auto bid.
19. Oklahoma State – 1st Midwest, auto bid.
20. Penn State – 3rd Mid-Atlantic, at-large bid.
21. Gonzaga – 4th West, at-large bid.
22. Furman – 8th Southeast, OUT.
23. Minnesota – 2nd Midwest, auto bid.
24. Florida State – 3rd South, at-large bid.
25. Boston College – 3rd Northeast, at-large bid.
26. Arkansas – 1st South Central, auto bid.
27. Lipscomb – 5th South, at-large bid.
28. Syracuse – 2nd Northeast, auto bid.
29. Michigan State – 4th Great Lakes, at-large bid.
30. Utah Valley – 5th Mountain, OUT.

Unranked teams receiving bids
Texas (#31 in votes) – 2nd in South Central, auto bid.
Toledo (#34 in votes) – 3rd Great Lakes, at-large bid.
Harvard (no votes) – 4th in Northeast, at-large bid. 

If we go back and look at preseason rankings, every team ranked in the preseason top 21 made it to NCAAs. However, six teams ranked in the preseason top 30 failed to make it.

Teams Ranked in Preseason That Failed To Make It
#22 Cal Baptist
#23 Utah Valley
#24 Furman
#26 Colorado
#27 Ole Miss
#30 Iowa State

That means seven teams that weren’t ranked in the pre-season made it to NCAAs.

Teams Not Ranked in Preseason That Made It To NCAAs
West Virginia (receiving votes #32)
Harvard (receiving votes #33)
Penn State (receiving votes #35)
Toledo (receiving votes #38)
Minnesota
Florida State
Texas

Other observations

• The biggest surprise on the women’s side was that #22 Furman failed to qualify. They were 14th at Pre-Nats and the next six teams behind them in that race all qualified today. Furman had a monstrous 17 at-large points by the end of the selection process but needed to finish in the top five at the Southeast regional and could only manage 8th. Furman put three runners in the top 18 at regionals but their #4 and #5 were well back in 79th and 90th. Props to Furman coach Rita Gary who took responsibility, after the race, writing she “cooked” her 4-5-6-7 runners by pushing them too hard in practice.
  

Man this ones on me. 100%.

Got too aggressive with training and cooked my 4-5-6-7… not my brightest coaching moment.

I love this team and am grateful they trusted me… time to recalibrate. pic.twitter.com/YVpidh9lT9

— RITA GARY (@RGary2) November 15, 2024

• The Colorado women, in the first year of the post-Mark Wetmore era, will miss NCAAs for the first time since 2008.
• The Harvard women were 22nd at Pre-Nats but they beat Arkansas and Tennessee at that meet and that got them the at-large points they needed to qualify today.

Men’s Qualifiers

For the men, all of the teams ranked in the top 22 made it to NCAAs but there were 5 ranked teams to miss out.

Regional results of the men’s top 30 (based on the most recent USTFCCCA coaches’ poll)

Ranking / Result
1. BYU – 1st Mountain, auto bid.
2. Oklahoma State – 1st Midwest, auto bid.
3. Arkansas – 1st South Central, auto bid.
4. Iowa State – 2nd Midwest, auto bid.
5. Wake Forest – 5th Southeast, at-large bid.
6. New Mexico – 2nd Mountain, auto bid.
7. Stanford – 3rd West, at-large bid.
8. Northern Arizona – 3rd Mountain, at-large bid.
9. Wisconsin – 2nd Great Lakes, auto bid.
10. Alabama – 1st South, auto bid.
11. North Carolina – 2nd Southeast, auto bid.
12. Washington – 1st West, auto bid.
13. Virginia – 1st Southeast, auto bid.
14. Villanova – 1st Mid-Atlantic, auto bid.
15. Oregon – 2nd West, auto bid.
16. Cal Baptist – 4th West, at-large bid.
17. Syracuse – 1st Northeast, auto bid.
18. Princeton – 2nd Mid-Atlantic, auto bid.
19. Notre Dame – 1st Great Lakes, auto bid.
20. Harvard – 2nd Northeast, auto bid.
21. Butler – 3rd Great Lakes, at-large bid.
22. Furman – 6th Southeast, at-large bid.
23. Colorado State – 9th Mountain, OUT.
24. Eastern Kentucky – 3rd Southeast, at-large bid.
25. Portland – 5th West, OUT.
26. Wyoming – 6th Mountain, at-large bid.
27. Michigan State – 4th Great Lakes, OUT.
27. Texas Tech – 8th Mountain, OUT.
29. Iona – 4th Northeast, OUT.
29. Georgetown – 3rd Mid-Atlantic, at-large bid.

Unranked teams receiving bids
Colorado (#31 in votes) – 5th Mountain, at-large bid.
Utah State (#34 in votes) – 4th Mountain, at-large bid.
Ole Miss (#35 in votes) – 2nd South, auto bid.
Tulsa (#36 in votes) – 3rd Midwest, at-large bid.
Tulane (no votes) – 2nd South Central, auto bid.
Virginia Tech (no votes) – 4th Southeast, pushed in by Wake Forest.

If we go back and look at preseason rankings, every men’s team ranked in the preseason top 14 made it to NCAAs. That being said, just as was the case with the women, six of the pre-season top 30 didn’t make it to NCAAs.

Teams Ranked in Preseason That Failed To Make It

15. Iona
16. Portland
17. Texas
18. Montana State
19. Michigan
20. Gonzaga

That means seven teams that weren’t ranked in the preseason top 30 made it to NCAAs.

Teams Not Ranked in Preseason That Made It To NCAAs

Cal Baptist (receiving votes #33)
Georgetown (receiving votes #34)
Furman
Tulane
Utah State
Virginia Tech
Wyoming

Near-misses

2024 was one of the wildest years ever when it came to near-misses on the men’s side. Three teams came within three points of qualifying but didn’t quite run well enough at regionals to advance.

The closest call came at the Mid-Atlantic regional. Villanova won the race with 50 points, but the next three teams were separated by a single point: Princeton (80), Georgetown (80), and Navy (81). Princeton got the second auto spot, Georgetown grabbed an at-large bid, and Navy missed out on qualifying. But had Navy beaten either of those teams, the Midshipmen would have been pushed into the meet. And that came very close to happening – Navy’s #2 man finished just 0.4 behind Princeton’s #3. If you flip those two around, Navy finishes 3rd, Princeton finishes 4th, and both teams qualify. Under that scenario, Tulsa would have been out.

In the Great Lakes, Butler and Michigan State tied for 3rd with 104 points, but Butler won the tiebreaker and will go to NCAAs while Michigan State will miss out. Had Michigan State finished 3rd, Butler would have pushed them in and both teams would have qualified.

Amazingly, Michigan State would have made it if the front of the race had gone just slightly differently. Purdue’s Douglas Buckeridge was leading but celebrated just before the line and was nipped for the win by Butler’s William Zegarski. If Buckeridge had held on to win, Butler would have finished with 105 instead of 104 and lost to Michigan State, sending the Spartans to NCAAs. Instead, only Butler will go.

With an unofficial time of 29:12.7, Butler’s William Zegarski has won the men’s individual title at the NCAA Cross Country Great Lakes Regional!@butlerXCTF | @NCAATrackField pic.twitter.com/l72qjTbm4b

— #MACtion (@MACSports) November 15, 2024

Also in the Great Lakes, Michigan racked up a ton of points during the regular season but finished 6th and found themselves blocked by Michigan State and Purdue. Michigan (150) finished just one point behind Purdue (149). Had Michigan beaten Purdue, both Michigan State (pushed in) and Michigan both would have qualified. Instead, neither of them made it through.It’s the first time that both schools missed NCAAs since 2010.

Portland came just three points away from qualifying. The Pilots were 5th at the West regional with 102 points. Cal Baptist was 4th with 99. Had Portland beaten CBU, they would have been pushed into the meet. Instead, Portland only had one point (a win over Furman at Nuttycombe) and wound up on the wrong side of the bubble. Portland went to Nuttycombe in September but sacrificed an opportunity for points by skipping Pre-Nats in October.

Other observations

• OK State did not run Fouad Messaoudi (2023 NCAA 3k champ, 12th and 10th the last two NCAA XC meets), who was only 32nd at Big 12s. They also did not run Ryan Schoppe (their #4 at Big 12s). But they did run Addisu Guadie (28:10 10k pb), who had not raced yet this season. He finished as their #5 man in 12th. The fact that Cowboys coach Dave Smith pulled Guadie’s redshirt suggests either something is wrong with Messaoudi or Schoppe or he feels he cannot leave anything to chance when it comes to battling BYU at NCAAs next weekend.
• The Oregon men stepped up big today – in particular top man Aiden Smith, who has improved a ton this season. Last year, Smith was 167th at the West regional and was only 19th at Pac-12s in the 5,000 (though he did run 7:56 for 3k on the track). This year, Smith was 9th at Big 10s and 5th at regionals to lead the Ducks today.
  Oregon did not earn any points in the regular season, which means they needed to finish in the top four today in order to qualify for NCAAs. Missing out would have been a complete disaster for coach Jerry Schumacher considering the Ducks also failed to qualify for NCAAs in 2023. Instead, Oregon ran well, scoring 68 points to grab the second auto spot to make it to nationals.
• Wake Forest struggled, finishing 5th in the Southeast after winning the ACC title two weeks ago (three ACC teams beat them today). True freshman JoJo Jourdon, who was 8th at ACCs, was just 40th today in his first 10k. And Rocky Hansen, the runner-up at Nuttycombe, did not race at all.
• Congrats to the Tulane men, who qualified for NCAAs for the first time since 1998 after finishing 2nd in the South Central.

Talk about the action on our world-famous fan forum / messageboard:

1. Official 2024 NCAA D1 Regionals thread — Who is going to the Big Dance?
2. Purdue runner celebrates early, loses Great Lakes regional title at the line
3. BYU SMASHING NAU Colorado Devastated
4. Jessica Hull explains how she broke out in 2024: The move home was key
5. I’m a Top 20 NCAA XC finisher. I graduated and now interviewing for Big 4. Should I talk about my Elite running on interview?
6. Ellie Shea to NC State?
7. Duke only races 2 women at regionals?? 1 DNF’s.
8. What happened to Connor Burns?
9. CONFIRMED NCAA Men’s field

https://x.com/BYUTFXC/status/1857513500756816240