Sunday Evening Decathlete: Special Tuesday Edition

What did we learn at the NCAA Cross Country Championships?

No surprise winners. All four of my picks for team and individual champions, as posted at Spiked Up Psyched Up, came through for the wins. I thought I was making very safe picks and going with the favorites.

Anyone who thought Oklahoma State was anything but the favorite clearly doesn’t know how to add. Much was made all season about Stanford’s 1-2-3 punch at several big meets. On paper this made them look very tough. But if Stanford’s top three were better than OSU’s top three—and going into the meet that had to be considered a very big if—all six were going to be so close to the front of the race that the point difference was going to be very small. At those levels there just aren’t that many runners to come in between them. It was obvious all season that OSU probably had the better fifth runner, and definitely had a much better fourth runner. And at those speeds, there are so many more athletes from other teams that can add points to the inferior runner’s team.

What did happen? Stanford went 5-6, OSU went 7-8-9. Stanford’s Elliot Heath ran poorly, finishing 36th, but even if he’d stayed up with his teammates the point differential among the front three runners would have been only nine points. The difference between the two teams’ fourth runners was 60 points, and between their fifth runners was 79. Game over.

Cross country is like poker in that you need five good cards. And OSU was holding four of a kind while Stanford held three of a kind.

Dave Smith knows his stuff. The Oklahoma State coach usually holds his cards close to his vest, but in interviews leading up to the meet he let it be known that he thought Wisconsin was a title threat. The Badgers were second with 2k to go, but #4 runner Elliot Krause cratered in the last half-mile (possibly due to injury) and Wisconsin fell to third. Had he held on the Badgers would have easily been second, and possibly had enough to win if Oklahoma State had experienced an off day.

The Pac-10 shit the bed. Or was ridiculously over-rated. One or the other. Summary:
Men
Stanford poll #1, finished #4
Oregon poll #3, finished #6
Cal poll #18, finished #31 (last)
Women
Washington poll #4, finished #16
Oregon poll #6, finished #12
Stanford poll #7, finished #13
Arizona poll #9, finished #11

It’s not as if Pac-10 teams haven’t done well in recent years. Just not this year.

The wind wasn’t that big of a factor. Maybe I’m a bit biased; I live in a part of the country where 15-20 mph winds only qualifies as “breezy”. But remember, this is a big race with a lot of runners at more or less the same competitive level. Most athletes could hide in a pack.  Only the frontrunners had to worry about the wind.

Or did they? Sam Chelanga led pretty much the entire race, and won going away. But he was a prohibitive favorite, so maybe he’s not the best example. Luke Puskedra is. The Oregon Duck finished third, a big surprise. He was alone in third with no one to break the wind for him for more than half of the race, yet he could not be reeled in. And at 6’ 5”, you’d figure the wind would have made a big difference to such a big man.

My college team didn’t like the wind, but we most certainly didn’t fear it. We faced it every day from October through May. The only major impact the wind may have had on yesterday’s races is to cause fear. And fear makes people do rash, stupid things—such as making major changes to race strategy.

Pre-Nats doesn’t matter much. At least not to the top teams. Fivce of the top ten men’s teams yesterday didn’t even go to Pre-Nats. Runner-up Florida State’s men’s team was third in the Pre-Nats blue race, 111 points behind Stanford, who took fourth yesterday. Iona was also ahead of FSU at Pre-Nats and took eighth yesterday. BYU’s men were second in the White race at Pre-Nats and took 18th yesterday.

On the women’s side it wasn’t much different. Only four of the top ten women’s teams at the NCAA Championships went to Pre-Nats. The top teams who did go didn’t do as poorly—division champs Florida State and Georgetown were 2nd and 4th yesterday—but it’s still true that Pre-Nats is basically for teams trying to qualify to the NCAA Championships, not teams trying to win stuff when they get there.

The NCAA is in for a flaming. The webcast of yesterday’s meet was “craptastic”, to quote one online observer. Not only were those who watched it online cheated, the people there in person were as well. (There’s a big video board showing the camerawork, and at the finish unless you’re in the first row along the fence you can’t see what’s happening.)

Indiana State and Flotrack.org produced a great webcast of the Pre-Nationals invite. They made offers to the NCAA to do the championships webcast for free, which were declined. Instead some other company was brought in, one which had no experience producing cross-country meets.

For whatever reason, no camera on the lead truck was used. (At Let’s Run it was said that this was due to contractual obligations, but I can’t understand why.) The plan was to use cameras atop towers set around the course, but high winds nixed that. So we were left with one single camera at the press box, which often got basically no images of runners at all when they were on the far reaches of the course.

And then, at the men’s finish, a camera failed. The picture switched to another camera...which failed. And then when another was used, then they did the obligatory post-finish shot of the winner while the rest of the race was still being fought.

The wrath of the Let’s Run faithful will likely rain down on the appropriate people, if it hasn’t already. When ESPN screwed the USATF coverage last summer, its ombudsman reported an unprecedented response.

NCAA Report

It's a bit late to get a real report up; Trackshark has the most complete coverage on the net. What I can report on: why do I keep on going back?

First off, I go with a college buddy or two each year, hang out and drink beer. That alone might make it worth a day off work, a hotel room, and five hours in a car each way. But the meet itself is more than worth all of that. Indiana State has this down to a science. Rating the meet:

Information: 70 meters
The PA announcer always does a great job of keeping us updated on both individual leaders and team scores (calculated every 2k) and a prominent video board does the same. The website is good. The only drawback is the meet program, which is awful for an NCAA championship and not worth the $2.

Facility & Amenities: 100 meters
Flat-out the best cross-country facility in the western hemisphere. All kinds of concessions available, including hot stew--a good idea for a day where wind chills were around 20. Meet T-shirts, sweatshirts, polo shirts and hats available. The lowest-cost NCAA championship there is ($5). Only port-a-johns, but no shortage there. I even hear a farmer across the road opens up his property for camping the night before. A perfect score.

Presentation: 150 meters
They make this a very big deal. From the national anthem, which this year featured fireworks and in the past has included a fighter jet flyover, to the awards presentation complete with a big stage and haybale seats, the fans are treated like they run the show. The live cable coverage is shown on a big videoboard; the course has every kilometer and mile prominently marked; fans are allowed free movement throughout the whole facility save the final straightaway. Literally the only thing we can complain about has nothing to do with ISU's handling of the meet. When the CBS cameras followed the winners for too long while ignoring the rest of the race, the crowd by the videoboard loudly vocalized their displeasure in the direction of the production crews.

Extras: 50 meters
ISU has created tradition over the last five years. That's not easy to do, and you can't set out to do it. Instead, you must make it a place and a time that people look forward to with anticipation and back on with pleasure. I hope the NCAA makes this the permanent home of the championships, as they have done with Lincoln and the College World Series.

Final total: 370 meters (out of a possible 400). And that's something any Superfancan get behind.