Regionals Declarations Are Available

[gh]

http://members.aol.com/rpodkam/events.html

Note that start Lists go up tomorrow noonish PDT (we'll make some handy links on our front page)

[tafnut]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

Progress: The West Region has 12 women at 13' or better in the Pole Vault.

[gm]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

>Progress: The West Region has 12 women at 13' or better in the Pole Vault.

and still pathetic -- only 10 or 11 dudes in the 100/200 in the West

the NCAA folks need to even out the regions or give it up

[Husky Dude]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

Or force the Pac-10 to lower its academic standards

[ycn]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

Here's a quick calculation on the number of athletes qualified for the regionals broken down by men and women, with totals.

The calculation excluded the two relay events (didn't want to deal with that) and the 10K and decathlon, which are not included in the regionals.

-------------
MEN
-------------
East
Athletes: 386
Events: 422

Mideast
Athletes: 390
Events: 450

Midwest
Athletes: 325
Events: 365

West
Athletes: 271
Events: 307


-------------
WOMEN
-------------
East
Athletes: 472
Events: 542

Mideast
Athletes: 380
Events: 438

Midwest
Athletes: 278
Events: 325

West
Athletes: 314
Events: 364


-------------
ALL
-------------
East
Athletes: 858
Events: 964

Mideast
Athletes: 770
Events: 888

Midwest
Athletes: 603
Events: 690

West
Athletes: 585
Events: 681


It's pretty obvious that regional representation is largely a function of population.

I definitely think the qualification standards for the regionals are not stringent enough. It costs real money for these schools in a basically non-revenue sport to send all these young people to the regional meets, and at an average of almost 95 qualifiers nationally per event, that's just way too many. The chance of anyone outside the top 64 scoring any points is regionals is practically nil, and I bet no one outside the top 32 will score a point at nationals.

I think the field size should be reduced to 64 maximum, or sixteen per region. Anybody in the top 24 in the country qualifies, and the fields are filled we the next best in each region.

If a region as more than 16 in the top 24 in the country, then run one additional round in the event in that region only, and every other region still gets their 16.

Just my humble opinion. Colleges aren't going bankrupt because of the cost of fielding non-revenue teams, but cutting costs across the board is the way for every school to be fiscally responsible. If enough common sense was in place. We could have half again more young athletes on scholarship without programs collapsing from seas of debt.

[dl]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

Sure, the athletes who qualify out of each region are not equal. But who cares, other than the athletes, coaches and fans of that particular school?

Do the top 64 teams make the NCAA basketball tournament? Not even close. Do the top track athletes make it to the NCAA track meet? Definitely.

The West Regional last year was the best collegiate meet I've ever seen othern than an NCAA Championship.

[ycn]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

Dan, you misinterpret the reason for my post. I wasn't making a statement about unbalanced regionals, I was making a statement about how the size of the lists was based on population, within a general point that too many athletes are going to regionals, which costs the programs across the country money that can be spent in more appropriate ways.

That's all.

[bubba]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

>Or force the Pac-10 to lower its academic standards

They can get lower? he he he he

[dl]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

ycn - I was replying in response to gm's post.

[ycn]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

Sorry, Dan

(I need to remember that this isn't a threaded board...)

[gm]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

But Dan, how is it fair that the balance of regions (or imbalance as it stands right now) keeps some people out of the nationals simply because the crappy West only has 10 dudes in some events?!? It's a damn sight easier to advance out of a group of 10 than a group of 20, I would think.

Or, if we are only worried about the best of the best, then your support for Regionals falls flat, because that's who we USED to get under the old system!

If we are going to keep this awful system (which would be great if applied to INDOOR track), let's at least balance the regions so each meet has similar numbers of entries in each event.

[RMc]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

>But Dan, how is it fair that the balance of regions (or imbalance as it stands
>right now) keeps some people out of the nationals simply because the crappy
>West only has 10 dudes in some events?!? It's a damn sight easier to advance
>out of a group of 10 than a group of 20, I would think.

Certainly, but should the 10th best athlete in another region deserve to go to NCAAs? I think not. Dan's post is dead on--it's only of concern to marginal athletes and their coaches, not those who will be actually competing for scoring spots at the NCAAs.

Or, if we are only
>worried about the best of the best, then your support for Regionals falls flat,
>because that's who we USED to get under the old system!

WRONG, running a fast time does not necessarily equate to being the best competitor, especially in the sprints where conditions on a single day can make an athlete a qualifier despite a spotty competitive record.

If we are going to
>keep this awful system (which would be great if applied to INDOOR track), let's
>at least balance the regions so each meet has similar numbers of entries in
>each event.

That's simply not possible given the disparities in regional focuses. For example, what about the distances, where the West has a substantial advantage? Or the womens' pole vault as pointed out by another poster. You can NEVER get precise balance in a regional based system. And as Dan pointed out, the basketball tourney is FAR from balanced as well. No system will be perfect--what we hope is created is an exciting way to determining the championship. Again, as Dan pointed out, the Regionals were generally a much more exciting method than watching last-chance time trials.

[dl]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

gm- I agree that the regionals system is not "fair." But I don't think fairness is the most important thing here. Sure, if I were an athlete or coach at one of these programs I'd be upset, but we already let track coaches make too many of the decisions based on their own interests.


Just curious, why do you think regionals would work better for indoors?

[skeith]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

In reponse to RMc: "...but should the 10th best athlete in another region deserve to go to NCAAs? I think not." I'm sure that there are a number of other examples but look at the Mid-East 800 for men and women. 1:48.13 is 10th on the region list (of 42 entrants i might add) but it is also #17 on the national list. And on the women's side, 2:06.19 is 10th on the region (out of 39) and is also #20 on the national list. In previous non-region years these 10th best region marks would qualify for the nationals based off of their national ranking. Now, with the number of entrants and depth of performance in the event in the mid-east, along with running 5-6 prelim heats qualifying the winner plus 2-3 times, these marks/athletes have a tough "row to hoe" and it looks slim to non that they will make it out to nationals, even with the expanded field size. I hope they prove me wrong. Just my two cents worth as i am usually just a reader of these forums.

[Bruce Kritzler]

Re: Regionals Declarations Are Available

Regionals would work better indoors because of differences in tracks.
Expanding on this subject I would like to see banked indoor tracks eliminated. Also indoor tracks should be no longer than 200m. These two factors have eliminated technique and tactics from indoor running. It is no different than outdoors, now!
Hopefully all the best athletes will get to ncaa, at least as at-large selections. We have the 15th nationally ranked tj'er, but he is only 8th in our region.